PAW, Engraved in stone

PAW. Playing around the World. Today in different format, leaving the rooms where usually games are played, leaving the tables, the boards that may be folded, the boxes.

Traveling through the territory.
From the museum to the churches and castles.
From the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, to the Beira Alta border.
Looking over the rest of the country and beyond.

Traveling through time.
Time of players and builders, or builders-players.
Time of the archaeologists, curators, historians, in search of memory.
Visitor time.

Traveling along the family tree.
In a text with photographs sent by my daughter and papers written by my mother!

About immovable boards, engraved on stone, which remain after the people are no long, waiting for others to come. Adapting the lyrics of Barclay James Harvest, "Now the People Are Gone Just the Games’ Boards Alone”.

Let’s start at the National Museum of Natural History and Science, in Lisbon, with a game reproduction and a factsheet on the Alguergue, in the Alguergue of 12 variety (Photos by Leonor Conceição).

A 5x5-point board. A dozen pieces on each side, leaving only a free intersection at the beginning of the game.

Lines that connect the dots, indicating the possible movements. Moving only one step at a time, from one point to an unoccupied neighbour point.

Captures, leaping over an adjacent opponent's piece to the immediately following intersection, provided it is empty. Possibility of multiple captures, in sequence, in one single move.

A classic game, a two-sided fight.

Let's leave the museum, heading to Beira Alta, Sabugal County, on the border with Spain. 

Let's travel, in the writing of Manuela de Alcântara Santos, to find alguergue boards carved on granite and to discover a little more of its history [1]. 

Alguergue, an word coming from ancient Arabic Al-Quirkat, small stone. Word that denotes the close origin of these games that have traveled to us: introduced in the Iberian Peninsula by overseas Muslims.

Not a game, but a family of games, with common principles, but with different boards and number of stones.

Here, in Sabugal, these are five alguergues of other variants, designated 9 and 3, according to the number of stones on each side.

Engraved boards may be found in Sabugal, Vila Maior, Vila do Touro, Sortelha and Rendo. In rocky outcrops or constructions. All probably from medieval times.

From Sabugal let’s move to the whole country finding more, many more, games engraved on the stone.

Up to 250 boards identified in the work of Lídia Fernandes [2], with a clear majority of alguergues of 12 and 9, from north to south, from Valença to Silves, some dated from the X-XI centuries.

And we go beyond, crossing borders of countries, regions or tribes, communicating in different languages, using distinguished names, but playing the same games: Alquerque (Spain), Marro (Catalonia), Marelle (Italy), Marella (Sicily), Mérelles (France), Bara-Guti (India), Natt klab ash-shawk (Palestine), Damma (Sara), Aiyawatstani (New Mexico), among many others [3].



[1] Santos, Manuela de Alcântara (2012), Tabuleiros de jogos de alguergue no concelho de Sabugal, [Boards of alguergue games in Sabugal county], Sabucale – Revista do Museu do Sabugal, 2012, n.º 4, pp 83-96.

[2] Fernandes, Lídia (2013), Tabuleiros de jogo inscritos na pedra – Um roteiro lúdico português, [Game boards engraved in stone - a Portuguese ludic itinerary ], Apenas Livros.

[3] Murray, H.J.R (1952), A history of board-games other than chess, Oxford at the Clarendon Press.

Step in and leave your PAW print - Playing Around the World - and follow the PAW tag.
Send a photo of a gaming session, the game title, your name, city, country (and, if you feel like, a short sentence about the game and or a photo of the city) to gamesinbw@gmail.com.