DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0518
476
THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.
Com-
pared
with
Creek
' Polis
rod placed on them would keep its position (see Fig. 340). Taking in the
short bars on the sides, the total number of points that could thus be
recorded with a short marker laid on the bars would be 10, a number corre-
sponding with the disks below. The remaining four bars on either side, distin-
guished by a plain surface, correspond with the number of the upper disks.
The comparison that has suggested itself of the upper enclosure with
a four-towered citadel calls up an interesting analogy with the Greek game
of polis or ' city ', and the underlying idea of an assault on a fortified city is
no doubt common to both, as to the
kindred Roman game of latrttnculi.
But the resemblance is only of a
very general kind. The classical
gaming boards seem to have been
entirely divided into squares. The
name of'dogs' (icwe?). applied to the
pieces used in the game of polis}
points to a derivation from those
of similar Egyptian boards in the
shape of jackals.- The arrange-
ment of the Cypro-Minoan board
found at Enkomi,3 a triple group
of four squares from the central set
of which proceeds a file of eight
others, is directly taken over from
an Egyptian type. In the present
case we have a highly differentiated
variety and no close parallel to
the Knossian Gaming Board has as yet been supplied either by Egypt or
the Classical World.
The very simple character of the grouping of the disks in what seems
to have been the compartment of the Board reserved for the actual play
makes it clear that variety and interest was here supplied by the inclusion
of an element of chance. What we have before us would in that case not
Fig. 340. Section of Board showing
ribbed crystal bars, alternately bossed
and flat.
1 Pollux, Onom. ix. 98, &c. The name
sometimes appears as IIoAet?, e. g. Plato,
Republ. iv (p. 423) and the Scholiast on
the passage. For an acute commentary
on this see Ridgeway, J. H. S., xvi, p.
288 seqq.
2 See Ridgeway, op. cit., p. 289. On Queen
Hatasu's Draught-board the pieces have lions'
heads.
:i B. M. Excavations in Cyprus, p. 12, Fig.
19, and Ridgeway, loc. cit. On the Assyrian
and Hittite characteristics of the hunting scenes
on the side of the box see my Mycenaean
Cyprus,J. Anthr. Inst., xxx (1900), p. 210 seqq.
THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.
Com-
pared
with
Creek
' Polis
rod placed on them would keep its position (see Fig. 340). Taking in the
short bars on the sides, the total number of points that could thus be
recorded with a short marker laid on the bars would be 10, a number corre-
sponding with the disks below. The remaining four bars on either side, distin-
guished by a plain surface, correspond with the number of the upper disks.
The comparison that has suggested itself of the upper enclosure with
a four-towered citadel calls up an interesting analogy with the Greek game
of polis or ' city ', and the underlying idea of an assault on a fortified city is
no doubt common to both, as to the
kindred Roman game of latrttnculi.
But the resemblance is only of a
very general kind. The classical
gaming boards seem to have been
entirely divided into squares. The
name of'dogs' (icwe?). applied to the
pieces used in the game of polis}
points to a derivation from those
of similar Egyptian boards in the
shape of jackals.- The arrange-
ment of the Cypro-Minoan board
found at Enkomi,3 a triple group
of four squares from the central set
of which proceeds a file of eight
others, is directly taken over from
an Egyptian type. In the present
case we have a highly differentiated
variety and no close parallel to
the Knossian Gaming Board has as yet been supplied either by Egypt or
the Classical World.
The very simple character of the grouping of the disks in what seems
to have been the compartment of the Board reserved for the actual play
makes it clear that variety and interest was here supplied by the inclusion
of an element of chance. What we have before us would in that case not
Fig. 340. Section of Board showing
ribbed crystal bars, alternately bossed
and flat.
1 Pollux, Onom. ix. 98, &c. The name
sometimes appears as IIoAet?, e. g. Plato,
Republ. iv (p. 423) and the Scholiast on
the passage. For an acute commentary
on this see Ridgeway, J. H. S., xvi, p.
288 seqq.
2 See Ridgeway, op. cit., p. 289. On Queen
Hatasu's Draught-board the pieces have lions'
heads.
:i B. M. Excavations in Cyprus, p. 12, Fig.
19, and Ridgeway, loc. cit. On the Assyrian
and Hittite characteristics of the hunting scenes
on the side of the box see my Mycenaean
Cyprus,J. Anthr. Inst., xxx (1900), p. 210 seqq.