Catacomb Games
Reused Game Boards or Funerary Inscriptions
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22017695 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ulrich Schädler (0000-0002-9528-5402, Swiss National Museum, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 369-395 |
| 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-2022-0012 |
| OpenAlex | W4224885872 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 20 |
Several marble slabs fashioned like game boards for XII scripta/Alea come from Christian catacombs in Rome. Often deliberately cut or fragmented, they were used as funeral slabs. The general opinion is that these game boards have found a secondary use in the funeral context. The present paper presents a critical discussion of this interpretation. The slabs differ in several details from real game boards. Moreover, the inscriptions often betray a distinctive funeral character. Game boards for this game consist of three rows of two groups of six squares, their structure thus being identical to the poetic form of a hexagram. It appears that in Late Antiquity, the hexagram was particularly popular as a formula for funerary inscriptions. Moreover, the symbolic meaning of the XII scripta/Alea game favoured its use in sepulchral contexts. It seems therefore that at least a certain number, if not most of these “game” boards, were produced as funeral slabs and never used before as game boards in the home of the living
Archaeology · Art · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literature · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · History · Mathematics · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |