Board Games Equipment from Archaeological Contexts in Archaic Attica

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of the presence of gaming equipment (painted gaming tables and dice) in Attic tombs of the 7th and 6th century BC. It is argued that this type of funerary goods, whether functional at once, or not, have acquired a specific social and ideological meaning related to the notion of leisure, specifically destined to the upper classes. They first appear in the early 7th century, when such equipment must have been a rarity in mainland Greece, and their use was revived during the first third of the 6th century BC, a period of polarization between the aristocracy and the rest of the Athenian population.