01-18-2021, 08:56 AM
(01-17-2021, 02:31 AM)RogerCooper Wrote: Some ancestor of Alquerque is likely older than Go as a board was found in quarry for the pyramids.Hi Roger!
I am aware of lots of graffiti games at stone quarries In Egypt, but not specifically from those used for the pyramids. Do you have a source for this information?
The problem with graffiti for us archaeologists is that they provide merely a terminus post quem—that is, an earliest possible point for the graffiti. This means that the date of the game cannot be earlier than the date of the quarry, but does not tell us the date that it was actually made. To date something accurately, you also need a terminus ante quem—the latest possible date. For most graffiti examples, unfortunately, that is the date It was first recorded; leaving a range of several thousand years for the possible date the game was made. It could have been made by anyone, at any time, that happened upon this site. This has been demonstrated all over Egypt, Sudan, and in Southwest Asia in the work of Alex de Voogt. If you'd like some references to his work I would gladly pass it on.
Many of the monuments of Egypt have graffiti games on them that people have attempted to attribute to pharaonic times, but the fact is that the monuments where these games were carved have been exposed for a very long time, and so anyone in the past 5000 years could have made them.
Alquerque has never been found in an archaeological context that can be dated to the pharaonic period. The earliest solid date for Alquerque that I am aware of comes from graffiti at the baths of Hammat Gader, in what is now Israel. These Roman Baths were renovated by the Umayyad Caliph Mu'awiya in 662-663 CE, our terminus post quem for the pavements where the game appears. The terminus ante quem is provided by the date of the earthquake in 749 CE which destroyed the baths and buried the floors. Thus, we have a narrow range of dates for this game.
The purpose of our project is, in part, to sort out the evidence for games and determine what can be reasonably dated and what cannot be.