ADA Figure 0 It turned out that every one of these diagrams is used as a game board for a three in a row game somewhere in the world Did the ancient Egyptians really play such games How could the scientists find out The temple was built 3 300 years ago to memorialize the king Pharaoh Seti I It stands in the town of Qur na Royal tombs were built on the west side of the Nile River This was where the setting sun entered the spirit world for the night according to Egyptian beliefs Ancient Egyptians believed that people would have a life after death and would need all the things that they enjoyed while they were alive So the tombs
contain many items that were important to them in life like clothing jewelry tools and even their pets The Egyptians painted the walls of their tombs and temples with the scenes from the lives of their kings and queens and other wealthy people Game boards and carved game pieces for Senet and other games were buried with the mummies of important Egyp tians That's how we know about the games that these people played when they were alive But no game boards for three in a row games have been found inside the tombs and no pictures of people playing such games appear on temple walls How did these diagrams come to be on the roof of the Pharaoh's temple Probably the workmen who built the temple played three in a row games on the stone slabs during their lunch break Instead of draw ing a fresh game board in the sand for each game they carved permanent diagrams in stone You may wonder whether Egyptian children played these games Perhaps fathers played such games with their children at home But they probably drew game boards in the dirt outside the house and wiped them away when the game was over leaving no trace From Egypt the games could easily have spread all over the world Greek scholars traveled to Egypt for higher education just as people nowadays go to col lege The Romans who probably learned the games from the Greeks spread them when they conquered parts of Europe the Middle East and North
By that time the Chinese had already been playing three in a row games for centuries Game diagrams carved on the tops of stone walls and the steps of important buildings can still be found in many parts of the world The first European picture of children playing a three in a row game appeared in Spain more than seven hundred years ago in the Book of Games In the picture two children sit on either side of a large board for a game called Alquerque de Tres The Span ish name means mill with three The game board they used is just like the board for Tapatan see page Arabic speaking Moors came to Spain from North Africa in the eighth century They taught the Spanish people how to play games like Chess and Alquerque Later the Spanish King Alfonso the Wise had this information written down in the Book of Games Soon these games spread to other parts of Europe and lat er to America Now you will have a chance to learn several three in a row games that children play in other parts of the world As you will see some of these games are more complicated than Tic tac toe But the object of the game is always the same to be the first player to get three markers in a row MAKE A MILL
Three in a row games are called mill in many European countries In England they are often referred to as Morris with a number telling how many counters each player uses The word Morris may have come from the word Moor the name of the people who brought the game to Europe by way of Spain Children in the United States play a three in a row game called Tic tac toe If you don't already know the game you might ask a friend or an older person to teach it to you In England they call the same game Noughts and Crosses A nought is a zero or 0 and a cross is an X The players take turns marking X or 0 in the nine spaces of the game
