Welcome to Gaia! ::

Senet
Senet, a board game from predynastic and ancient Egypt, is the oldest board game whose ancient existence has been confirmed, dating to circa 3500 BC [1]. The full name of the game in Egyptian was sn.t n.t H'b meaning the "passing game."
Senet may be the oldest board game in World History, although it is impossible to prove which game is the oldest. The oldest remnants of any ancient board game ever unearthed however are those of Senet, found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burials of Egypt (see ref. [2]), circa 3500 BC and 3100 BC respectively. Senet is also featured in a painting from the tomb of Merknera (3300–2700 BC) (see external links below). Another painting of this ancient game is from the Third Dynasty tomb of Hesy (c. 2686–2613 BC). It is also depicted in a painting in the tomb of Rashepes (c. 2500 BC).
By the time of the New Kingdom in Egypt (1567–1085 BC), it had become a kind of talisman for the journey of the dead. Because of the element of luck in the game and the Egyptian belief in determinism, it was believed that a successful player was under the protection of the major gods of the national pantheon: Ra, Thoth, and sometimes Osiris. Consequently, Senet boards were often placed in the grave alongside other useful objects for the dangerous journey through the afterlife and the game is referenced in Chapter XVII of the Book of the Dead. The game was also adopted in the Levant and as far as Cyprus and Crete but with apparently less religious significance.

Gameplay
The Senet gameboard is a grid of thirty squares, arranged in three rows of ten. A Senet game has two sets of pawns (at least five of each and, in some sets, more). Senet was apparently a race game for two players, with moves determined by tosses of throwsticks or, sometimes, knucklebones.
The actual rules of the game are a topic of some debate, although historians have made educated guesses. Timothy Kendall and R.C. Bell are two Senet historians who have proposed (different) sets of rules to play the game. These rules have been adopted by different companies which make Senet sets for sale today.

Liubo
Liubo or liupo (Chinese: 六博; pinyin: liù bó; literally "six sticks") is an ancient Chinese board game.
The earliest surviving remnant of liubo dates from circa 1500 BC, the Shang Dynasty in China, carved on a slab of blue stone. Another can be found in Robert Lin's Chinese Chess, 1991.
As with most other games handed down to us from antiquity, exactly how liubo was played may have varied from one time period to another and one player to another and one culture to another. For example, upon analyzing the ancient literature of Greek Board Games Professor Austin remarks that Plato in the 5th to 4th centuries BC originally described petteia as a battle game, but by the time knowledge of that game reached Eustathius Macrembolites in the 12th century AD, Eustathius was calling it a race game. Professor Austin supplies other similar examples as well.
Liubo is no different. Where some may refer to liubo playing pieces as "generals" and "pawns" others refer to them as "fish," "stones" and "owls".
Rules
Consequently, while some regard liubo as a battle game played with dice, others regard it as a game only akin to playing a game of cards where players accumulate points or "fishes." Though there are a number of surviving literary references to and artistic impressions of the game that date from antiquity, there are no known surviving records of the rules of liubo. Some scholars have attempted to reconstruct the game, most notably Lien-sheng Yang, who discusses the game as it was possibly played on TLV mirrors.
Lien-sheng Yang describes liubo as having been played between two players with each player having 6 men. In addition there were six sticks that that the players threw that were shared between them. Because of the lack of written documentation, the rules of the game are still as yet unconfirmed, although some scholars such as Lien-sheng Yang have made suggestions as to the method of play. From a formula written by an expert player of liubo, Yang theorizes that a player’s piece would start on an L and try to move to a V depending on stick rolls. At this moment certain throws by the sticks would allow one’s piece to move into the center and ‘kill’ the opponent’s piece if already present in the center. Once present in the center, one’s piece could begin to block the enemy’s pieces from taking the square. For each block one would gain two points. One could also attempt to recover one’s pieces after they are blocked, and would gain three points for doing this. If one failed to win after having blocked two men, then the opponent would gain six points and win the game. The first player to six points would win the game. One noteworthy literary reference of liubo is found in the 3rd century BC poem Chao hun by Sung Yu.
Because we do know that liubo was played by some as a "battle game" (with sticks that were similar to dice) it has gained the distinction of having perhaps spawned the creative development of Xiàngqí (also known as Chinese Chess), another ancient Chinese battle game (played without dice). Furthermore, some may point out how the board design of liubo lends itself to a Xiàngqí-like grid of squares.
Liubo is thought to have lost its popularity by around the 6th century AD.

Three Men' Morris
Three men's morris is played on a three by three board (counting lines) and is a game of position. The game is thought to be a direct ancestor of tic-tac-toe. It is also related to Six Men's Morris and Nine Men's Morris.
Rules
The game is played with two sets of three or four pieces (one set for each player), with each set having its own colour.
Each player takes it in turn to place pieces on intersection points, the first person to place three along a line wins the game. Once all pieces are placed (assuming there is no winner by then), play proceeds with each player moving one of their own pieces per turn. A piece may be moved one line segment per turn.
History
The earliest known board for this game was found on the roof of the temple in Kurna, Egypt dating back to 1400 BC.
The earliest known mention in literature is in Ovid's Ars Amatoria.
It is thought that the Chinese played this game under the name Luk tsut K'i during the time of Confucius (circa 500 BC).
Boards for Three Men's Morris dating back to 13th Century can be found carved into the cloister seats at the cathedrals at Canterbury, Gloucester, Norwich, Salisbury and Westminster Abbey.
The name of the game may be related to Morris dances (and hence to Moorish). It may also be derived from medieval Latin merellus (coin, piece, or game using pieces).

Mancala
Mancala is a family of board games played around the world, sometimes called sowing games or count and capture games, which comes from the general gameplay. The games of this family best known in the Western world are Oware (or Awele), Kalah, Sungka and Omweso, and Bao. Mancala games play a role in many African and some Asian societies comparable to that of chess in the West.
Names
People unfamiliar with mancala games commonly assume there is a particular game with the name Mancala. This perception is helped by marketing which often fails to differentiate variations or gives names like "Ethiopian" or "Nigerian". Although these countries traditionally play the game, there exist several different ways of playing it even within those cultures. As such, these names are not wholly descriptive. Even names which are rightly associated with certain games, such as "Awari", are frequently lifted and applied to different games.
In fact, the name mancala is the Arab name commonly given to some games of this type; the word comes from the Arabic word naqala (literally "to move"). This word is used at least in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, but is not consistently applied to any one game. In the Western world, "mancala" is often seen used as a generic name for the game "kalah". Research in English refers to "games in the mancala family" or "mancala games", rather than "mancala variants" which would imply there is one main mancala game on which the others are based.
Adding to the confusion, widespread mancala games may go by different names in different regions, often with slight rules variations. Then, there are groups that give multiple games the same name; sometimes one is intended to be played by men, another by women. Historically, researchers have had difficulty separating the rules for games apart from strategic implications or favored setups, which has caused additional confusion over which games are distinct, or which names refer to the same game. Because of these considerations, and the fact that mancala games have reached the West from these multiple cultures, it is difficult to establish what names and rules, if any, are the "proper" ones.
The names of individual games often come from the equipment used; for instance, bao is the Swahili word meaning "board".
A variant called pallanguzhi is played in Tamil Nadu. The Yoruba people of West Africa call it "Ayo". In Ethiopia, where the game is thought to have originated, it is called "Gebeta" (Ge'ez ገበጣ gebeṭā).
General Gameplay
Mancala games share a general gameplay sequence of picking up all seeds from a hole (the strategy), then sowing seeds one at a time from a hole, and capturing based on the state of board. This leads to the English phrase "Count and Capture" sometimes used to describe the gameplay. Although the details differ greatly, this general sequence applies to all games.
Equipment
Wooden Mancala Board from West AfricaEquipment is typically a board, constructed of various materials, with a series of holes arranged in rows, usually two or four. Some games are more often played with holes dug in the earth, or carved in stone. The holes may be referred to as "depressions", "pits", or "houses". Sometimes, large holes on the ends of the board, called stores, are used for holding captured pieces. Playing pieces are seeds, beans, stones, or other small undifferentiated counters that are placed in and transferred about the holes during play. Nickernuts are one common example of pieces used. Board configurations vary among different games but also within variations of a given game; for example Endodoi is played on boards from 2 × 6 to 2 × 10.
With a two-rank board, players usually are considered to control their respective sides of the board, although moves often are made into the opponent's side. With a four-rank board, players control an inner row and an outer row, and a player's seeds will remain in these closest two rows unless the opponent captures them.
These games are good for getting children interacting and used to counting. Children can even be encouraged to make the game themselves as follows: Take two half dozen egg cartons, tear the tops off them both, and arrange them in a long line (lid, base, base, lid). You can staple or tape them together if you wish, and you can use pebbles or beads as seeds.
Object
The object of mancala games is usually to capture more seeds than the opponent; sometimes, one seeks to leave the opponent with no legal move or to have your side empty first in order to win.
Sowing
At the beginning of a player's turn, they select a hole with seeds that will be sown around the board. This selection is often limited to holes on the current player's side of the board, as well as holes with a certain minimum number of seeds.
In a process known as sowing, all the seeds from a hole are dropped one-by-one into subsequent holes in a motion wrapping around the board. Sowing is an apt name for this activity, since not only are many games traditionally played with seeds, but placing seeds one at a time in different holes reflects the physical act of sowing. If the sowing action stops after dropping the last seed, the game is considered a single lap game.
Multiple laps or relay sowing is a frequent feature of mancala games, although not universal. When relay sowing, if the last seed during sowing lands in an occupied hole, all the contents of that hole, including the last sown seed, are immediately resown from the hole. The process usually continues until sowing ends in an empty hole.
Many games from the Indian subcontinent use pussa-kanawa laps. These are like standard multilaps, but instead of continuing the movement with the contents of the last hole filled, a player continues with the next hole. A pussa-kanawa lap move will then end when a lap ends just prior to an empty hole.
Capturing
Depending on the last hole sown in a lap, a player may capture seeds from the board. The exact requirements for capture, as well as what is done with captured seeds, vary considerably among games. Typically, a capture requires sowing to end in a hole with a certain number of seeds, or ending across the board from seeds in specific configurations.
Another common way of capturing is to capture the contents of the holes that reach a certain number of seeds at any moment.
Also, several games include the notion of capturing holes, and thus all seeds sown on a captured hole belong at the end of the game to the player who captured it.