Researchers from Ege University are puzzling over their latest discovery, a set of immaculately preserved game tokens that are 5000 years old. The tokens “depict pigs, dogs and pyramids, others feature round and bullet shapes. We also found dice as well as three circular tokens made of white shell and topped with a black round stone” researcher Haluk Sağlamtimur who was part of the team at Ege University told Discovery. The 49 small stones sculpted in different shapes and painted in different colours were found at Başur Höyük, a burial plot near Siirt in southeast Turkey and it lends further credence to the long held notion that board games developed first developed in the Middle East.

The uniqueness of the find is that all of the gaming pieces were found together in one location where previous finds have been single discs that could have been used for counting. The researchers are still unsure as to what the rules of the game are, but Sağlamtimur has said that “According to distribution, shape and numbers of the stone pieces, it appears that the game is based on the number 4,”.

Source: Discovery News