A pattern of small holes cut into the floor of an ancient rock shelter in Azerbaijan shows that one of the world's most ancient board games was played there by nomadic herders around 4,000 years ago, according to an archaeologist who has investigated the find.
     Walter Crist, a research associate with the American Museum of Natural History in New York, visited the rock shelter in a national park in Azerbaijan last year, searching for traces of the ancient game now known as "58 Holes." The game is also sometimes called "Hounds and Jackals."
     British archaeologist Howard Carter found a game set with playing pieces fashioned like those animals in the tomb of the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Amenemhat IV, who lived in the 18th century BCE. The distinctive pattern of round pits scored in the rock of the shelter in Azerbaijan came from that same game, Crist said. But the Azerbaijan version may be even older than the game set found in the pharaoh's tomb.
     Evidence from rock drawings near this shelter suggested that it dated to the second millennium BCE, or about 4,000 years ago, when that part of Azerbaijan was populated by nomadic cattle herders, he said. At that time, the game was widespread across the ancient Middle East, including Egypt, Mesopotamia and Anatolia, he said. "It suddenly appears everywhere at the same time," Crist said. "Right now, the oldest one is from Egypt, but it's not by very much. So, it could just be because we haven't found it from somewhere else older. So, it seems to [have] spread really quickly."
     Crist investigated archaeological sites in Azerbaijan, which led him to the Gobustan National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the southwest of the country, which is famed for its ancient rock carvings and drawings. Archaeologists at the park knew about the holes in the rock shelter, but not that they had been used as a board game. The holes are cut into the rock of the shelter in a distinctive pattern that shows how they were used, Crist said. "There is no doubt in my mind - the games played for about 1,500 years, and very regular in the way that it's laid out," Crist said.
     Though the rules of 58 Holes are unknown and while it has been reported that the game is an ancient ancestor of modern backgammon, Crist rejects that idea - they have some similarities, but backgammon was derived from the much later Roman game Tabula, he said.
     Crist said the use of such ancient games throughout a wide area showed that they were able to cross cultural boundaries. "People are using the games to interact with one another," he said. Games were "kind of a uniquely human thing, kind of an abstraction - moving stones in blank spaces on the ground has no real effect on your daily life, except for the fact that it helps you interact with another person. So, a game is a tool for interaction, kind of like language - a shared way of being able to interact with people," Crist concluded.

Edited from American Schools of Oriental Research Meeting (November 2018), LiveScience (10 December 2018)