Get the latest tech news

The ancient invention that ignited game play (2021)

Being able to create randomness is a complex idea based on a simple invention that gave us play, gambling and maybe even ritual.

Irving Finkel, a philologist and expert on Mesopotamian language and culture at the British Museum, suggests people might have thought this made dice "fair" though there is no scientific reason why it would. He says it is difficult to know how earlier versions of these games developed if they were played on the earth with pebbles, so boards made for the rich left in burial chambers and illustrations on walls provide the best materials to work from. "The rise of women leadership in medieval Europe changed the power of that character," says Mary Flanagan, author of Critical Play and a professor of film and media studies at Dartmouth College, United States.

Get the Android app