Forum Archive : History

Backgammon in China From:   Mark Driver Address:   mdriver@mail.usyd.edu.au Date:   3 January 2001 Subject:   Re: backgammon in 19th century china Forum:   rec.games.backgammon Google:   92tvm8$of$1@spacebar.ucc.usyd.edu.au > Does anyone know if backgammon was played in the 19th century China? The short answer is 'Yes'. An abridged 'long' answer is set out below. A precursor of backgammon, the game of 'nard', was known in China as early as 700 A.D. The local name for the game was Shan-liu (meaning double six). A reference can be found in the following book; Stewart Culin, 'Chinese Games with Dice and Dominoes', (Washington 1895), at page 80. Nard closely resembled backgammon: ie race game played on the 'backgammon' board with 30 checkers whose movements were governed by chance from the throw of 2 die. If one considers 'backgammon' to be a generic term encompassing the numerous variantions in rules, set up and movement (ie so it would include variants such as Russian Backgammon, Greek Backgammon etc) then its safe to say that backgammon was played in 19th century China. However, if one defines 'backgammon' very narrowly as a specific variant with a distinct set of rules, (ie so as to preclude variants such as Russian Backgammon, Greek Backgammon etc) then the answer might be 'no', as more research is needed. Hope that helps.   Did you find the information in this article useful?           Do you have any comments you'd like to add?

 

History

Backgammon in China  (Mark Driver, Jan 2001) 

Backgammon variants  (Raccoon, Aug 2003) 

Books on the history of backgammon  (Albert Steg, Aug 1998) 

Changes in backgammon over the years  (Joe Russell, July 2009) 

Doubling in the 17th Century?  (David Levy+, Dec 2003) 

Murray's "History of Boardgames Other than Chess"  (Dean Jameson, Apr 2002) 

Origin of backgammon  (Greycat Sharpclaw, Oct 1997) 

Recent changes  (Joe Russell+, July 2009) 

The effect of bots on the game  (Daniel Murphy+, May 2005) 

The name "backgammon"  (Jive Dadson+, Dec 2002) 

The name "backgammon"  (Marina Smith, Jan 1998) 

The name "backgammon"  (Albert Steg, Mar 1995) 

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