
Ancient Board Game Found in Looted China Tomb - prismatic
http://www.livescience.com/52808-ancient-board-game-found-in-china-tomb.html
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richard_mcp
Wikipedia quotes the rules from a book written between 265 and 420 AD:

 _Method of play: Two people sit facing each other over a board, and the board
is divided into twelve paths, with two ends, and an area called the "water" in
the middle. Twelve game pieces are used, which according to the ancient rules
are six white and six black. There are also two "fish" pieces, which are
placed in the water. The throwing of the dice is done with a jade. The two
players take turns to throw the dice and move their pieces. When a piece has
been moved to a certain place it is stood up on end, and called an "owl (梟or驍)
". Thereupon it can enter the water and eat a fish, which is also called
"pulling a fish". Every time a player pulls a fish he gets two tokens, and if
he pulls two fish in a row he gets three tokens [for the second fish]. If a
player has already pulled two fish but does not win it is called double-
pulling a pair of fish. When one player wins six tokens the game is won._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liubo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liubo)

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xerophyte12932
> Twelve faces of the die are numbered 1 through 6 in a form of ancient
> Chinese writing known as "seal script." Each number appears twice on the die
> while two faces were left blank, the researchers noted.

if numbers 1 through 6 each appear twice on a twelve sided die, how do they
leave two faces blank?

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rlpb
Nothing in the text you quoted says that it is a twelve sided die, only that
twelve faces of the die are numbered. That part of the statement doesn't tell
you how many faces there are in total.

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IndianAstronaut
After watching the 3 Kingdoms series, one thing that strikes me is that these
board games probably had huge significance back then as compared to today.
Empires were made or broken based on effective military strategies. Those who
could strategize on the board would win in the field.

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guai898
There is more detail description and photo of games pieces recovered from
other tombs in the Chinese Wiki:
[https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AD%E5%8D%9A](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AD%E5%8D%9A)

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JoeAltmaier
Cool! But bugged me throughout that while only one die was found, it was
called a 'dice' repeatedly.

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aurelianito
I was expecting a goban (aka, go board)

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contingencies
Should be marked (2004)

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holografix
Is it Cyvasse?

