Watching a chess match and thinking there were no board games before the likes of chess, checkers, and backgammon? Do you really think that the concepts of even our modern, electric board games are wholly original?
Believe it or not, people have been playing board games for thousands of years, likely since the dawn of humanity as we know it. Before our more sophisticated video games, everyone seemed to enjoy a good board game, and many people still do. Just look at Monopoly as it churns out new editions every couple of years!
Unfortunately, many ancient board games are unplayable, as we don’t know the rules to them. They were popular enough that archaeologists have exhumed many of them, but literacy rates were low enough that everyone just learned the rules orally and passed them on. Some of them have rules, and some of them seem simple enough that we’ve managed to discern how the game was likely played, however, and we’re going to be looking at one of them today.
Yes, this will likely become a series.
Nine Men’s Morris
As recently as 2018, excavations at Vyborg Castle, an old Russian fortress, unearthed an old, forgotten medieval game board. Etched into a clay brick, the game was being played in the 16th century.
Other excavations, namely one that revealed that Egyptian workers had carved a Morris board into a slab of roofing, prove the game is quite a bit older, as early as 1,400 BC.
How is it Played?
The game is similar to checkers.
The board is a grid, consisting of three squares nestled inside one another. Lines connect the 24 intersections on which pieces can be placed.
There are only two players, as in checkers. Each of them has 9 “men”, represented by different colors.
Each player attempts to form a “mill”, which is to have three of their pieces in a row on one of the lines. You can do this vertically or horizontally, but you mustn’t form angles.
The game actually starts with zero pieces on the board and ends when one of the players is reduced to two pieces and therefore cannot form any mills, or if a player has no legal moves he or she can make, making the other player the winner.
There are 3 phases to the game, the last one being optional.
Phase 1:
1. Players take turns placing one piece onto the board at a time onto the empty slots.
2. Each player tries to prevent the other from forming mills. If one player forms a mill, he or she can remove one of the opponent’s pieces of their choice. The only rule is that the piece removed cannot be part of a mill already. If all of the opponent’s pieces are in mills, then none can be removed. Removing pieces is called “pounding”.
3. If players can form more than one mill in a single move, he or she remove as many of the opponent’s pieces as there are mills.
Phase 2:
1. Now that all the pieces are on the board, it’s time to start moving them. You take turns moving pieces around the board trying to form mills.
2. During the second phase, players can only move their pieces to adjacent dots. If there are more than one of the opponent’s pieces in a row, players cannot jump over those pieces.
3. Players may remove pieces from a mill they’ve formed and then move it back on the next turn. Doing so counts as forming a new mill and they can remove an opponent’s piece.
Phase 3: (Optional)
Phase three is an optional phase that allows pieces to “fly” over the board. It may begin when one player has been reduced to three pieces.
1. Players can move pieces to any available dot, even if this means skipping over dots or jumping pieces.
2. Players are allowed to skip phase three and just continue playing in phase two until the game is won.
Where Can You Play It?
Sound like a game you’d like to play? It’s easy! There are game boards available if you just look around. Etsy has some talented people who make very beautiful Morris boards.
There are also Nine Men’s Morris apps available if you’d like to play a bit of history to pass the time and don’t need a dedicated game board.
Of course, you can also make your own game board. It’s not difficult and can be a fun project, especially for kids. You can even just draw it on a piece of paper, as ancient people simply carved it into clay and stone. See how easy it is in the video below.
