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Games

Ancient Indus Civilization games and game pieces.

Two Gaming Pieces

This excerpt refers to mound F excavations in Extension Ab. "Another trial trench which had to be cut through a thick layer of earth and debris revealed a huge mass of broken earthen vessels of different shapes and designs varying in size from sm… >

Objects including Games Piece

Two rows of small objects, three in one row. Four are round, one cylinder and one conical. All from Pit III, find nos. 69, 71, 72, A49 and ?69. >

Game, Bone and Shell Objects

10 small objects in two rows of five each. Top row: Similar looking objects published in Vats 1940 (Vol. II), Plate CXVII, nos. 28-31. Vats described these as “chessman shaped lingams” and mentioned that they “are found in very large numbers … >

An Ivory Chess Disc and Two Chess Figures

"Objects used for games are not many. Those that may be said to be unmistakable are balls and marbles in stone, shell, faience and pottery; dice of the same materials except shell; and some gamesmen of tetrahedral or chessman shape, the latter hardly distinguishable from baetyls." >

Linga?

Sir John Marshall has an extensive section (see Images 2 and 3 for his references) on linga, yoni and the often difficult job of distinguishing them from game pieces and stones in general (Mohenjo-daro, p. 58-63). We reproduce the entire section fro… >

Game Board

A wide variety of game pieces from Mohenjo-daro on a modern wooden board. Sir John Marshall, one of the earliest excavators at Mohenjo-daro writes in the monumental work summarizing the first finds at the site (Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civiliza… >

Indus Game Board

Sir John Marshall continues describing the game pieces found at Mohenjo-daro (Mohenjo-daro, pp. 557-59): "The poorer people used gamesmen made of pieces of potsherd roughly rubbed into a suitable shape. The board on which these pieces were used w… >

Gameboard?

Ernest J.H. Mackay identified this piece as a gameboard, and wrote in Further Excavations (p. 574-5): "We have been fortunate in finding two boards on which same kind of game was played, though unluckily neither is complete. It is ikely that most… >

Gameboard

  • Gameboard

Apparently half-of a burnet brick that seems like it could have been a gameboard, found in the DK area of Mohenjo-daro. Note that the conical piece is likely not a gaming piece but a pointed cone. Dr. Kenoyer writes (Ancient Cities, p. 120). … >

Terra cotta discs

One of the games played by the children of the Indus cities may be represented by terra cotta discs found in graduated sizes. A game called "pittu" is played throughout Pakistan and northern India even today, with stacks of pottery discs and a ball … >

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