Re: Abridged summary of bgs4ever@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic

[Richard Ballam]

Should I assume then that references to Roman origins of the Totum are mistaken, and that no ancient examples have been discovered or written about?  Richard Ballam

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On 1 Sep 2020, at 14:49, "bgs4...@googlegroups.com" <bgs4...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



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• Games with Put & Take - 1 Update

Games with Put & Take

Jonas Richter <jric...@gwdg.de>: Aug 31 07:17PM +0200 Hi everyone,   spinning off of the recent discussion about owl games I'm curious about the history of the basic "put & take" element, that is: a central pot/ bank, and some mechanic (usually a ...more

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[Tibaldini Marco (Student Edu18)]

Dear Richard, as far as I know, the question is debated. There are two items found in Milan and Empuries which seems to date at the late Roman time, but this datation could be challenged, especially for the Spanish one. As I manage to collect the papers I’ll forward them to you. Remind me in case I forgot.  

Cheers, Marco 

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Il giorno 2 set 2020, alle ore 10:04, Richard Ballam <buryb...@msn.com> ha scritto:

 Should I assume then that references to Roman origins of the Totum are mistaken, and that no ancient examples have been discovered or written about?  Richard Ballam

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[Malcolm J Watkins]

I would be interested to know what those references are. Strutt appears to suggest that the dreidl form of teetotum ('T-totum') is only 4-sided and perhaps a spin-off (pun intended) from spinning tops. Even the name seems to reflect the game ('totum' - 'all').

The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest reference is to an example in ivory from Daniel Defoe in 1720. I suspect the 6-sided form came about (or was perhaps resurrected) because of the duties on dice: buy a die, pay tax; use a teetotum, no tax.

Malcolm

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[Jonas Richter]

Marco, if you dig up those references, please share them on the list! I'm interested, too. :)

Richard, I only know of attempts to interpret the d26 made from Zöblitz serpentine (19th-20th cent.) as Roman artifacts; this has been defuted:

Borhy, L., 2003: Berichtigung zu CIL II, suppl. 6246, 8: Ein weiterer “seltsamer Spielwürfel” aus Barcelona. Faventia 25/2, 2003, 173-177. http://ddd.uab.cat/record/682

More on these dice: https://rpggeek.com/geeklist/186618/item/3714503#item3714503

Cheers
Jonas

[Malcolm J Watkins]

Wow! Thanks Jonas. Some really-thought-provoking stuff.

Malcolm

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[u.sch...@museedujeu.ch]

We are about to publish an entire volume of BGSJ to misconceptions in the history of games. In my part, I discuss the false identification as “Roman” of the famous dice from Zöblitz (still forwarded by Fittà in 1996) somewhat in detail.

 

It was clear already in 1877!

 

Cheers

Ulrich

 

De : bgs4...@googlegroups.com <bgs4...@googlegroups.com> De la part de Malcolm J Watkins
Envoyé : mercredi 2 septembre 2020 18:56
À : bgs4...@googlegroups.com
Objet : Re: Roman Put & Take/ tee-totum (or rather Zöblitz d26)

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bgs4ever/9525d061-471b-3b7f-6962-e3e0027cd119%40heritagematters.co.uk.

[Jakob Gloger]

Hello everybody,

 

Marco, I'm also interested!

Ulrich, I'm looking forward to read your part about the dice from Zöblitz.

I have a lot of them in my collection and I also a lot of information about the dice from Zöblitz (I talked about that topic 2017 in Copenhagen).

I still believe that the type b dice are older than the 19. century!

 

Cheers,

Jakob

 

 

Gesendet: Donnerstag, 03. September 2020 um 09:12 Uhr
Von: u.sch...@museedujeu.ch
An: bgs4...@googlegroups.com
Betreff: RE: Roman Put & Take/ tee-totum (or rather Zöblitz d26)

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bgs4ever/009601d681c1%248795eff0%2496c1cfd0%24%40museedujeu.ch.

[Malcolm J Watkins]

How strange.

Just posted on a Facebook page using the iffy dating of dominoes before the post-medieval period as an example of received wisdom.

SOunds interesting. Will hope I see and can obtain a copy in due course.

Malcolm

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[Stela maris Ferrarese]

good day

At what time did he invent those dice?

Is there a similar die found in a Roman archaeological site?

All the sites I have seen in Europe have common dice that in America we know as Spanish dice because they brought them to these lands from 1492 but the indigenous people did not use them, they used other dice that we have studied

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bgs4ever/trinity-83f63e94-b30a-4409-9494-fc18815cc669-1599118928844%403c-app-gmx-bs21.

[anno...@gmail.com]

Dear all,

I can add another of this type of dice from the Pommersche Kunstschrank (i.e. from before 1617), now in Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin (inv. P 77b). A silver d6 (9x9x9 mm), with blue champlevé enamel letters, described in Philipp Hainhofer's contemporary inventory as " […] vnd ain geschmeltzter vexier wirfel mit buchstaben mit diser außlegung: N.A. nimb allain, scilicet das deine, L.S. laß stehn. T.A. trinkh auß, S.Z. setz zue, N.G. nimbs gar. N.H. nimbs halb." (Lessing, Julius, and Adolph Brüning. Der Pommersche Kunstschrank. Berlin: Kommissions-verlag bei Ernst Wasmuth A.-G., 1905, p. 44). This set of combinations matches neither of the Borhy dice completely, being a bit of mix-and-match. Barbara Mundt indicates that the die would be used in combination with the Kronbrautspiel in the same Kunstschrank. (Mundt, Barbara. Der Pommersche Kunstschrank des Augsburger Unternehmers Philipp Hainhofer für den gelehrten Herzog Philipp II. von Pommern. München: Hirmer Verlag GmbH, 2009, p. 240-41.) Would that be plausible? Does anyone have any material indication of what these dice might have been used together with? How would the mechanics work with this die and the Kronbraut board, for example?

Cheers,

Greger

[Jonas Richter]

Hello everyone,

I've tried to collect all your input into a single document, sorted
chronologically: https://hcommons.org/docs/put-take/ Other HCommons
users can edit the document, similar to a Wikipedia page. If you don't
want to create an account but have improvements, please let me know.

HCommons = Humanities Commons is an academic research network. Apart
from the option to create free personal profiles, the site incorporates
a research repository, discussion groups and some other features. I've
created a group for the "History of Games and Play". So far I'm the only
member. ;)

What I like about HCommons is the fact that, unlike academia.edu or
researchgate.net, it is not a commercial, for-profit site. No ads, no
features hidden behind paywalls.

Jonas

[ofatihparlak]

Thanks, Jonas. I am a member now to your page, too :)

Cheers,

Fatih.

[Jonas Richter]

Some further findings (I'll also update them into the HCommons doc soon), on spinning dice (with numbers, not put & take markings) on the one hand, and on put & take dice on the other, both from German sources:

1) Here’s an archaeological paper mentioning a spinning die (Kreiselwürfel) found in a cesspit in Höxter (North Rhine-Westphalia). The cesspit is dated to the 14th to 1st half of the 15th cent. The die is made from bone, a hexagonal prism with a spindle, its faces showing 1-6 pips. König, the author of the paper, writes:

Der Fund stellt einen frühen Beleg dieser seit dem 16. Jahrhundert beliebten Spielwürfelvariante dar. (The object is an early example of this dice variant which was popular since the 16th century. – transl. JR)

Andreas König: Hinterhöfe der Macht – Ausgrabungen am romanischen Brückenmarkt in Höxter. ARCHÄOLOGIE IN WESTFALEN-LIPPE 2017 (2018), 90-94, here p. 92 (quote) and 93 (image). DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/aiw.0.0.68917

2) Johannes Bolte points to a text from 1671 in which a put & take die is described: Chr. Scriver: Gottholds zufällige Andachten, 1671, a collection of devotional, edifying texts. One of them takes its point of departure from a children's toy referred to as "Spielhölzlein", possibly a stick die. The four markings are said to be Omnia, Nihil, Pone, Trahe.

Johannes Bolte: Zeugnisse zur Geschichte unserer Kinderspiele. Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde 19 (1909), pp. 381-414, here p. 403.
Ibd.: Weitere Zeugnisse zur Geschichte unserer Kinderspiele. Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde 33/34 (1923/1924), pp. 85-95, here p. 93.

Christian Scriver: Gottholds Zufälliger Andachten Vier Hundert. Leipzig 1671 (not the first editon). Das dritte Hundert, p. 85 (Google Books). The text saw many reprints over the decades.

Cheers,
Jonas

[Tibaldini Marco (Student Edu18)]

Dear friends, 

I found the papers about the put and take dice of Milan and Empuries. I think that the last one is the one that Ulrich mentioned as the die of Barcelona.  

According to me they are definitely modern, maybe from Central Europe, but surely not ancient. 

The die of Milan has been found in a private collection and dated to the ancient-medieval time because of the presence in the same collection of ancient and medieval pieces, and because of the precedent datation of the Emporion specimen. 

So, the hypothesis about the datation of the die of Milan is inconsistent. 

Concerning the die of Emporion, has been found on site, apparently in one of the Roman layers (the city was founded as Greek colony and then romanized). Unfortunately the stratigraphy of the site appear as ‘disturbed’ in many zones and this brought to many misinterpretations and misinformation about it. The stores of the archaeological site are full of material, which, after a quick look, contains gaming material that passed unnoticed.

In this context the put and take dice emerged from one of the Roman layers, but shows marking signs that appear anywhere in the Roman time. The fashion of the Z and the A aren’t Roman at all and, on the other side, are exactly like all the other modern German dice like the ones presented by Jakob Gloger at the BGS 2017. 

In my opinion, instead of introducing the idea that these kind of items were used also during the Roman time, this die of Emporion should raise doubts about the datation of the layer in which has been found. 

Here some picture in low definition because of the limit imposed by Google, but if someone need them, I have in good resolution. Also for the papers in which they had been published: 

The die of Milan:

F.Slavazzi, preziosi elementi da gioco romani e medievali: dadi, pedine, pezzi di scacchi, pages 93-98 in C. Lambrugo, F. Slavazzi, A.M. Fedeli, i materiali della collezione archeologica “Giulio Sambon” di Milano, col. 1, tra Alea e Agòn: giochi di abilità e di azzardo, published by Edizioni all’insegna del giglio and Università degli studi di Milano, 2015. Pag.94, 97

The Barcelona specimen: 

J. Botet Y Sisò, Noticia histórica arqueológica de la Antigua ciudad de Emporion, Madrid, 1879. Pag. 124

The specimen of Milan compared to the other German modern dice 

Specimen of Milan

The die of Emporion exposed in Barcelona among true Roman gaming material

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Il giorno 8 set 2020, alle ore 20:18, Jonas Richter <jric...@gwdg.de> ha scritto:



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