The Jiroft Games

Printable Long Jiroft Board

History

Five ancient chlorite plaques that are almost assuredly game boards have been identified among the items taken back from illegal excavations of the archaeological site of Jiroft, in the Halilrood area of Kerman, Iran. The discovery site of the boards, Halilrood, is considered one of the richest archaeological sites in the world where ancient objects and architectural remains have been found by both archaeologists and looters. More than 700 sites have so far been identified in a 400 kilometer long area of the Halilrood River bank.

Although many of the artifacts from these areas are very ancient and date to the third and fourth millennium BCE, the precise date of these boards is unknown. The fact that many were removed illegally by looters, rather than archaeologists, may make dating them impossible. It is very probable that they are the oldest known board game artifacts. In all likelihood, they predate similar board games of Tau, from Egypt, and the Royal Game of Ur, from ancient Sumeria.

Any reconstruction of the games played on these boards is highly conjectural, but it must be noticed that these boards are topologically similar or equivalent to the ancient Egyptian game of Tau. It has been established with certainty that Tau is a race game. The reconstructed objectives and playing methods of Tau can also be applied to these boards. The Jiroft boards and Tau are, for the most part, topologically equivalent, although some of the Jiroft boards have four less cells on the central column.

Objective

The objective is to bear off all five of one’s counters before their opponent does so.

Play

Note that this game is indeed ancient and any reconstruction of its rules must be highly conjectural. Hardly any two reconstructions of the rules are exactly the same, although most authors agree on movement of the counters around the board. Most reconstructions give each player five counters. The counters begin the game off-board.

Alternate turns entail a throw of the single six-sided die or a throw of the four half-cylindrical dice to govern movement of a single friendly counter using the guidelines shown in the table:

A counter may only be entered onto the board after the throw of a one or five on the cubical die (equivalently, a throw of one or zero flat sides up with the half-cylinder dice). When this happens, the player rolls again and may move a counter in by the new amount shown. A player may have any number of their own counters on the board at one time, but the forward move points given by throw of the dice may not be split between two or more counters. Counters move forward only along the route shown below.

No more than one counter may occupy any cell. When a player’s counter lands at a cell occupied by an enemy counter; that counter is captured and removed from the board. Once captured, a counter must then be reentered by the rules described above. Captures are not compulsory if there are other moves available to a player on that turn. If the only move available to a player is to move forward to a cell occupied by a friendly counter, that move is forfeit and the player must wait until the next turn to try and move again. If any legal move is available to a player, however, that move must be made.