Board Games in Ancient Fiction
Egypt, Iran, Greece
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22017703 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ioannis M Konstantakos (0000-0002-4752-3533, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 449-490 |
| Publication date | 2022-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Board Game Studies Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2183-3311 • E-ISSN: 2183-3311 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.2478/bgs-2022-0016 |
| OpenAlex | W4224879030 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 60 |
Board games are often used as a plot motif in modern genre fiction, especially in detective and adventure stories. In these types of narrative, a well-known pattern of storytelling or literary structure (e.g., the treasure hunt, the detection of serial crimes, the iniatory course, or the medieval tale collection) is reworked and adapted to the rules and phases of a board game such as chess, jeu de l’oie , or the tarot card pack. This literary practice is very ancient and may be traced back to a number of novelistic compositions of the ancient Near East, dating from the 1st millennium BC to late antiquity. In the Demotic Egyptian Tale of Setne Khaemwaset , from the Saite period, the protagonist Setne plays a board game (probably senet ) with the mummy of a long dead and buried magician, in order to gain a powerful book of spells. The widespread Near-Eastern story-pattern of the magical competition is here superimposed on the procedure of a celebrated Egyptian game. In a late Hellenistic Greek novella inspired by the Odyssey (Apion of Alexandria, FGrH 616 F36) Penelope’s suitors play an elaborate game of marbles ( petteia ) in order to determine which one of them will marry the queen. This is a playful rewriting of the famous bow contest of the Homeric epic. A Sasanian novelistic work, the Wizārišn ī čatrang , adapts the age-old legend of the riddle contest of kings; the riddles are replaced with board games (chess and backgammon), which the opponents invent and propose to each other as difficult puzzles for solution. In all these texts the board game becomes a central symbol of the transformative and innovative power of literary narrative
Adventure · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Art history · CONTEST · Legend · Literature · Narrative · Treasure · Comics and Graphic Narratives · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Philosophy · Themes in Literature Analysis
Painting with Words, Writing with Pictures
The Book of Greek and Roman Folktales, Legends, and Myths
Ferdinand and Miranda at Chess
III. Études de mythologie hindoue. V. Bhakti et avatâra (suite)
A Thirty-Square Draught-Board in the Royal Ontario Museum
Greek Scholarship in the Imperial Era and Late Antiquity
Chapter Eight,. Pliny On Apion
Chapter Thirteen. The Mind Of An Ass And The Impudence Of A Dog
Rhampsinitus, Setne Khamwas and the Descent to the Netherworld
IX. Ueber die Homerischen Glossen Apions
Verne’s Cartographies
Monsieur Poirot, qu'attendez-vous pour abattre vos cartes ? ». Les fondements ludiques de la paralittérature
Zum Setna-Roman
The Interrupted Sacrifice and the Sanskrit Epics
Blackmailing Amazons and Dutch pigs
Mind, Body, and the Cosmos
The Club Pérez-Reverte
The Homer "Lexicon of Apollonius Sophista" I. Composition and Constituents
Putting Him Back Together Again
Ancient Greek Board Games and How to Play Them
The Names “Naneferkaptah,” “Ihweret,” and “Tabubue” in the “First Tale of Setne Khaemwas”
The Humanist Gambit
"Narrative Foiled in Bergman's "The Seventh Seal
Literate Games
Le roman « initiatique
Is the Story of Aḥikar the Wise of Indian Origin
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |