The antiquity of play

At a recent conference, several young researchers presented their work on games and attributed particular ones to specific historical periods. Such claims require caution because little evidence establishes which games were played at which time and where, or the rules they followed.

Etched grids, cave paintings, and archaeological finds, such as game pieces and dice, provide ample evidence of the antiquity of play. However, they do not necessarily establish the antiquity of a particular game.

So rather than trying to establish that, it is more important to understand the antiquity of play itself. The fact that human beings played matters. Games and their rules may evolve, but the fundamental element of play is integral to human life.

In fact, Johan Huizinga, the renowned Dutch cultural historian, best known for his work Homo Ludens, an influential study of play and culture, has argued that “play is older than culture.” He points out that animals did not wait for human beings to teach them how to play.

What is critical is that we study the available evidence carefully and continue to refine our understanding of play, games, and their antiquity.

In India, one of our strongest starting points is the Indus Valley Civilisation in the third millennium BCE. Archaeologists have found dice made from materials including bone, shell and terracotta, as well as other objects interpreted as counters and gaming pieces. These objects give us compelling material evidence that people were playing thousands of years ago.

At Lothal too, objects associated with gaming have been discovered, leading some to interpret them as evidence of games we know today. The material evidence may tell us that people played. It cannot necessarily tell us the rules by which they played or justify giving the game a much later name. That distinction is important.

Much closer to home, excavations at Keezhadi have added another fascinating layer to the story. Reports on the finds record gaming-related artefacts including dice and gamesmen. One account quoting the Keezhadi excavation report describes “dice, hop scotches and gamesmen” among the objects reflecting the pastime activities of the people who lived there.

As we move away from archaeology into early Indian textual and artistic traditions, the picture becomes richer. Vedic references, epic literature, Buddhist and Jain sources, and classical literature all indicate that games were played, though with varying degrees of detail.

While artistic interpretations of these ancient texts often depict a specific game such as Chaupad or Pachisi, we do not have enough information about the rules to assume that the game was similar to more recent versions.

Another source of evidence is the game boards etched into the stone floors and surfaces of temples and monuments across India. These are perhaps some of the most evocative pieces of evidence we have because they place play within physical spaces inhabited by people centuries ago. Yet dating an individual engraving can be difficult. A thousand-year-old temple does not automatically make every mark scratched into its stone a thousand years old.

Such evidence of play is found not only in India, but around the world. Archaeological finds from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia provide similar early evidence of play. The long history of play belongs not to any one civilisation, but to humanity. Perhaps that is what makes these small objects so compelling. A die, a counter, or a few lines scratched into stone may not tell us exactly what happened around them centuries or millennia ago. But they tell us that amid everything else human beings were doing, they made time to play.

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