In the 1980s , the board for agamewas found scratched onto the second - C stones of a Jerusalem city square , inspiring surmise as to the nature of the plot played on it . Many of the ideas proposed have been brutal , reflecting the fact the players were plausibly soldiers in the occupying Roman Army . However , a new account propose what we are seeing is in reality the ancestor of checker ( draughts ) .
The scratch are located near Hadrian ’s Gate , build up by the Romans to celebrate their crushing of yet another Jewish bid for exemption . In this setting , it ’s understandable some of those look at the small plug-in thought it was used to play a game to honor the god Saturn , with a captive chosen in the process perform at sunset .
Nir Wild is n’t an archaeologist or professional historian , but an organizer of diachronic reenactments currently working on a exercise set of events around Jerusalem based on archaeological find there as part of this year ’s Hanukkah celebrations . Hanukkah , after all , fete a more successful Jewish uprising against extraneous occupiers .
In this circumstance , Wild was stabbing to describe the nature of the game played at the site so it could be played again 1,800 years on . as luck would have it , he conclude , that did n’t think even have to pretend to execute anyone at sundown .
Instead Wild claims the game is one known asAlquerque , which finally evolved into checkers . Like so many thing , the Romans pinched it from elsewhere . " Alquerque originate in Ancient Egypt , " uncivilised toldHaaretz . We know this because there are representations of the game on the walls of grave . " A board was never found , only movie of it . It always seem the same , with the triangles . ”
The control panel has turned up various places since , including a tenth - C book of poesy . Wild is confident we jazz how it was played , at least about , because 1,100 year after the Romans chip at the board into the stones near Hadrian ’s gate the King Alfonso X of Castile commission theLibro de los Juegos , or theBook of Games , with linguistic rule . Alquerque was one of those admit .
Each player had 12 pieces or " soldier " and the intent was to “ eat ” the soldiers of one ’s opponent . The winner was the one to eat all the contradict soldiers . “ We do it about a few versions regarding the ruler and dissimilar names to the game but basically all the same target and manner of victory , ” Wild told IFLScience . All movement were like to chequer , but with less capacity for pieces to move backwards once they had reached the other side . The original version also did not permit the pickings of multiple piece in a unmarried move , which must have made the game considerably less square .
Violence and distortion may have been more common in the ancient world than today , but kill prisoners was n’t a requirement for roost soldier to have fun .
