Do you like board games? People in the past certainly did! Whenever they hung out with friends, they seized the opportunity to play board games. Their games came in many forms and varieties. Sometimes, they were more elaborate, with decorated wooden boards and intricately carved pieces. Other times, they would simply carve the board onto the ground or stone and use pebbles as game pieces. How do we know all this? In many archaeological excavations, dice, game pieces, and boards have been discovered. Some craftsmen even painted on pottery scenes of friends playing board games. On the Acropolis, game boards such as the enneas have been found carved onto the monuments. Enneas was a game common among ancient civilizations and was played by two players. It requires a board made up of three squares of different sizes, nested within one another, and 18 pieces — 9 for each player. The players try to form lines of three (similar to tic-tac-toe), vertically and horizontally, along the squares. Forming a line of three (a triodin) allows a player to remove one of the opponent’s pieces. The winner is the player who ends up with the most pieces when the game is over.

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