Fragmentary gaming board: game of 58 holes

This fragment belongs to a group of carved ivories, mostly furniture elements, probably found at the site of a palace at Acemhöyük in central Anatolia. Like another piece in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection (36.70.37g), it was originally part of a gaming board for playing an ancient game known today as the game of fifty-eight holes. The game was played as a race between two players with game pieces in the form of pegs that were inserted into the holes making up each player’s track, as in the modern game of cribbage, although the two games are not related. Since the earliest gaming boards for the game of fifty-eight holes come from Egypt, such as an example from Thebes which still has its animal-headed pegs (Department of Egyptian Art, 26.7.1287), the game itself may have originated there. More than forty examples of boards of this type are known from Egypt and the Near East, including an additional board from Acemhöyük made of the blue vitreous (glass-like) material Egyptian Blue and gold, now in the Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.