Supplies for Board Games in Roman Istria

Abstract

The Roman Period Collection at the Archaeological Museum of Istria contains marbles, dice and tokens for playing games, made of bone, ceramics, stone and glass paste. For the most part, the game supplies are recorded as chance finds, devoid of context or elements necessary for dating. The find circumstances are known only for two dice, of which one comes from the Roman villa at the Sv. Jelena kod Kršeta locality in northern Istria, and for two tokens from St. Theodore’s Quarter, Pula. These finds, mostly unpublished, provide us with a chance to look back at board games that were popular in the Roman period, and investigate in which games such items may have been used. Marbles were used for playing a variety of games, while dice – numerically marked with dots on all six sides – were cast using a small cup, and could be used on their own or in combination with a gameboard and tokens. Tokens were used for playing on a gameboard; in racing games, they were moved according to the number determined by the dice, while in strategic games they were moved by free combinations.