CHESS AND PLAYING-CARDS. 831 



15. ASTRAaALi.i Glass, ancient. 



Copies in glass of natural knuckle bones for use in games. Of very 

 common occurrence among the remains of classical antiquity. Bronze 

 astrayaH are found (fig. 151), and they are also recorded to have been 

 made of ivory and agate. 



10. Kabatain. Dice.' Lucknow, India. 



Cubes of ivory regularly marked — that is, the six and one, five and 

 two, and four and three opposite, so that their sum is equal to seven.' 

 The sx)ots are arranged so that the two <lice are ea(!h the complement of 

 the other. The "fours" are inscribed In red. The 

 spots consist of small circles with an interior dot, 

 the customary manner of marking Indian dice, 

 which agrees in this respect with those of ancient 

 Rome. 



17. KuBOS. Die.^ Ancient Greek. Naucratis, 



Egypt, about 600 B. C. ^ig ^^^ 



An irregular cube with rounded sides about an mronze astragalus. 



inch square. The material is limestone, with drilled Length, ij-g inches. 



holes for pips. Found by Prof. W. M. Flinders f"*'- ^°- ^*^' son.mervuie coiiec 



*■ tion. Museum of Archaeology, 



Petrie in 1885.-'' university of Pennsylvania. 



It is said that no traces of cubical dotted dice 

 have been discovered in I^gyptin the purely P]gyptian period, but they 

 occur in the Delta from the time of Psammetichus I (about C70 B. C). 

 They are regarded by scholars as a foreign introduction. 



In the British nuiseum there are two dice of glazed baked clay 

 from Assyria, found with tablets of Assurbanipal (668-623 B. C.) at 

 Kouyunjik. 



As the glaze of the dice is unlike that of Assyrian pottery, and from 

 the fact that the mounds at Ninevah were occupied by a Parthian 

 village about 200 B. C, Mr. Pinches concluded that the dice proba 



they call it the Chaimce Bone ; they playe with three or foure of those bones together ; 

 it is either the same or v^ery lyke to it." 



In a note Brand states: " In The Sanctnarie of Salvation, etc., translated from the 

 Latin of Lcvmus Leninius by Henry Kinder, 8vo., Lond., pr. by H. Singleton, p. 

 144, we read these bones are called huclcle-bones orcoytes." 



'Cat. No. 16488, Mns. Arch., Univ. Penn. Chinese Games with Dice and Dominoes, 

 fig. 31, Report U. S. Nat. Mns., 1893, p. .536. 



-Cat. No. 7145, Mus. Arch., Univ. l^enn. Chinese Games Avith Dice and Dominoes, 

 Jig. 27, Report U. S. Nat. Mns., 189.3, p. 534. 



■'Almost the invariable arrangement, the principal exceptions being the Etrnscan 

 and Ivoreau dice. The only other known to the writer are the Hindn dice (Nos. 11, 

 12) used in fortune telling, and the dice employed in the Burmese game of dominoes 

 (No. 24). 



••Cat. No. Ifi8983fl, U.S.N.M., from original, Cat. No. 17575, Mus. of Arch., Univ. Penn. 

 Chinese Games with Dice and Dominoes, tig. 28, Report U. S. Nat. Mus.. 1893, p. 534. 



'^ A somewhat similar die from Naukratis in the British Museum has leaden points 

 projecting from the holes, as if the die had been left iiuHnished. The dots forming 

 the three are arranged ^*^, in the same manner as upon the above. 



