About 500 BC, the Greek culture prospered both in the central town Athens and in the regions in Athens’ sphere of influence in Europe, Africa and Asia. In the Middle East, cultures had flourished earlier. One of them was Egypt under the pharaoh’s. There were contacts between the Greek and the Egyptians. Applying the law that a lower culture borrows from a higher culture, we may assume that the Greek borrowed board games from the East. There is even an eyewitness account: according to the Greek philosopher Plato, born c. 428 BC., the Greek had adopted Egyptian games, games with dice as well as games without dice [in “Phaedrus” 274d, source Murray 1952:24].

 Probably, among the borrowed treasuries was the Five lines game on the board right above. Probably. Every writer about the game alquerque says the pyramids looked down on alquerque playing people. Their source: Murray. To the gaming boards that were incised on the roofing slabs of the temple complex of Luxor on the western side of the Nile belongs an unfinished alquerque board, see the diagram below, borrowed from Murray [1952:19]. The right diagonal was mistakenly drawn. By the way, is Murray’s board with its 25 squares correct? For compare the pattern of the board above with its 16 squares. It is indefinite whether the board was carved during the construction of the temple. Murray [1952:18] made out a case for an early dating, as the board was partly cut away when the edges of the slabs were trimmed to make them fit against the adjoining slabs. The Luxor complex was built in the 14th and 13th c. BC.

Board from Luxor c. 14th c. BC

 Murray based his drawing on a description of the Egyptologist H. Parker [“Ancient Ceylon”, 1909]. We may assume that Parker observed carefully, but I did not succeed in verifying him. As far as I know no board game historian did any effort, they all trust Murray blindly.

 This uncertainty –combined with other question marks- hampers a well-founded pronouncement upon origin and age of draughts. Did the Egyptians three and a half millennium ago play draughts? Board game experts assume, following Murray -blindly again-, that the game on the alquerque board was played with the leap capture. However, a game with the leap capture but without promotion seems doomed to die soon, as a player can save his pieces by endlessly moving them back and forth. Such a game can impossibly have survived until our days. But the promotion of a piece is sophisticated, you don’t expect a rule like that so early in the evolution of board games. On the other hand: the temple of Luxor has a drawings of the morris board, see below, and in later times draughts and morris were always played together. What's more, in later times draughts and morris had the same name.

Morris board from Luxor ca. 14th c. BC

Scientific queries against a popular story

 It is possible to prove the existence of draughts as early as the 2nd c. BC, I believe. Prove could be too strong, may be I should better say: there are strong indications. The board which was used for draughts in later ages was known in Ancient Greece too, and a game with 2x12 pieces on this board was very popular, considering a proverb based on it. The board is believed to be used c. 1400 BC. Could draughts be thus old?

 In a popular story on the origins of draughts there is no room for doubts, one must make a choice. The most plausible assumption seems to me that draughts spread from the Middle East in a very early stage. Therefore my story tells the people without a blush that the pharaoh’s played draughts. In the part of my site you read now I’m more reserved.

Further inquiries are impossible

 There are no older traces of draughts, neither in the linguistic nor in the archaeological field. My inquiries come to an end in Egypt, 14th c. BC.