MonissaSep 19, 2025

I don't have many Iron Age game pieces, so I hope you'll forgive the not very good photos. They're only small, about thumb-sized, and my camera's outdoor lens is not suited for inside.

The museum label just says "Gaming pieces, Tingwall". (Shetland Museum, Lerwick.)

#IronAge #OldGames #Shetland #MuseumPhotos

MonissaSep 18, 2025
Two Pictish gaming boards at the Orkney Museum. (Label text is in the Alt text). From Buckquoy, Birsay, on the Orkney mainland (overlooking the Brough of Birsay, where there are Viking & Pictish settlements), about 9th century.
Most of these boards & pieces, I can't find anything about them over location and date, but these seem to stir some thoughts.
""It has been speculated that these Birsay boards could be the earliest examples of the [Hnefatafl] board so far found and might even indicate a Pictish origin for this essentially Viking game, especially since these sites have mixed Pictish and Viking remains"
(Swandro-Orkney Coastal Archaeology Trust, https://www.swandro.co.uk/post/viking-hnefatafl-it-s-all-fun-and-games-until-someone-loses-an-eye)
#Picts #OldGames #MuseumPhotos
MonissaSep 17, 2025
Viking gaming pieces again, but these are at the Orkney Museum, Kirwall.
The museum lable says "Whalebone gaming pieces. Buried in a leather or cloth pouch. The king piece is identified by an iron pin." So a tafl game then?
#Vikings #OldGames #MuseumPhotos
They're from a Viking boat burial on Sanday, one of the Orkney islands (Scar boat burial is anyone is interested).
Show threadNiko TrimmelSep 16, 2025

Im Tivoli-Park befindet sich das Muzej novejše zgodovine, das Museum für Neue Geschichte. Die Dauerausstellung "Slovenians in the 20th century" ist definitiv sehenswert!

Vom 1. Weltkrieg und dem Völkermanifest Kaiser Karls geht es über den kurzlebigen "Staat der Slowenen, Kroaten und Serben" ins Königreich Jugoslawien, den 2. Weltkrieg und dem Titoismus bis zur Unabhängigkeit und dem EU-Beitritt.

#Unterwegs #Reise #Reisefotos #Ljubljana #Laibach #MuseumPhotos #20thCentury #Zeitgeschichte #TravelSlovenia #Slowenien

MonissaSep 16, 2025
Roman Egyptian bone dice.
The museum lable says "Bone dice , from Oxyrhynchus, Roman Period, after 1st century BC" (National Museum of Ireland)
#OldGames #Vikings #Dice #MuseumPhotos
I am not going to look up anything on these because I will end up in a rabbit warren of Roman dice and Ancient Egyption games (and will want to buy things, and I already have bone dice, like the one in the middle, also a Senet game. Don't need more.)
MonissaSep 15, 2025
Like game pieces, the boards can also be hard to associate which a particular game, especially when they're roughly made.
This board, scratched on a plank, I can't find much about. The museum label says "Wooden game board, Saint John's Lane".
I found a book "Pocket Museum: Vikings" by Steve Ashby which captions it as 10-11th century, and scratched onto a ship's timber. An excavation report (https://excavations.ie/report/1977-79/Dublin/0032220/) might be referring to it as a 13th century scored gaming board. That's all
(National Museum of Ireland)
#OldGames #Vikings #MuseumPhotos
MonissaSep 13, 2025

A quick one tonight. A lovely little Viking-era glass gaming piece, from the same site as yesterday's board (Fishamble Street, Dublin). When gaming pieces are found without a board, especially when they're on their own, its usually not possibly to know what game they were used in (unless they're a carved chess piece, for example). But it is still very nice.

Its friend at the front is made from jet (Christchurch Street site).

Both from the National Museum of Ireland.

#OldGames #VIkings #MuseumPhotos

MonissaSep 12, 2025

OK I have a confession. I love old games and I obsessively take photos when I see them in museums. That's a lot of photos, so I thought I should actually have a look at which I have examples of (and share some here as I go).

This is a Viking-era Nine Men's Morris board, from Fishamble St, Dublin (at the National Museum of Ireland)

#OldGames #Vikings #MuseumPhotos