534 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1893. 



Fig. 27. 



K.^BATAIN — PAIR OF IVOHY 

 DICE: LUCKNOW, INDIA. 



directly conuected with the knuckle boues. The Arabic name for the 

 knuckle bone and the die is the same, l-^ab, and, like the knuckle 

 bones, which are commonly thrown in pairs, natural pairs from the 

 ri<>iit and left leg being used, cubical dice are also thrown in pairs. 

 Carrying out the resemblance, cubical dice in India are sold in pairs, 

 and by varying the arrangement of the "threes" 

 and "fours"* are actually made in pairs, rights 

 and lefts, like the knuckle bones. If this is the 

 true history of the descent of the cubical dotted 

 die, its evolution must have occurred at a very 

 early time, as the regularly marked stone die 

 (Fron, specimens in Museum of froui thc Greck colouy of Naucratls, EofVBt 



Unlveri'ily ol Penn-^ylvania. 1 ^ "' ?5J1'" 



(fig. 28), assigned by the discoverer, Mr. Flinders 

 Petrie, to 600' B. C, bears witness. 



]S"ow, the 4 sides of the knuckle bone (talus) (fig. 30), Avhich were 

 designated among the Eomans as supinum., pronum^ planum^ and tor- 

 tuosnm, and corresi)ond Avith the numbers "three," "four," "one," and 

 "six," receive in the Mohammedan East the names of ranks and con- 

 ditions of men. The Persians, according to Dr. Hyde, t name them, 

 respectively, "^w;^^?," "slave," "f7//j7>aM," "peas- 

 ant," ^^vezir,^^ "viceroy," and shah, ov padi-shah, 

 "king." Similar names are given by the same 

 author as applied to them by the Arabs, Turks, 

 and Armenians, From this it api^ears that the 

 names and rank given to the significant throws, 

 "three," "four," "one," and "six," with knuckle 

 bones and dice in Western Asia find their coun- 

 terparts in the names and rank of the same 

 throws in China, the names of the classes of 

 human society found among the Arabs being- 

 replaced in China with the terms for the cosmic 

 powers: "Heaven" ("six"), "Earth" ("one"), 

 and "Man" ("four"), and the "Harmony" 



("three-one"), that unites them. It will also be observed that the 

 use of 2 dice, which appears to follow that of the natural pair of 

 knuckle bones, and is displayed in the Indian ¥abatain, and the 

 ancient and widely diifused game of backgammon, is paralleled by 

 the use of 2 dice in. China, where shvumj Ink (Japanese, sugoroku) 



Fig. 28. 



STONE DIE: NAUCRATIS, 

 EGYPT. 



mm specimenin Museum of Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania. 



* If a Chinese die be turned ace up and revolved toward the person holding it so 

 that the "two," "Hve," and "six" are disclosed iu succession, it will be found that 

 the "thr(!e" is usually to the left and the "four" to the right, while the opposite is 

 more usually the case on European dice. In the Indian dice here referred to, this 

 arrangement is alternated, one having the "three" on the right and the other on 

 the left. 



t De Ludis ( )ri(iiralibus, p. 147. 



