OF GODS & GAMBLES: the History of Dice

Dice are one of the big entertainments of antiquity and still enjoy today a prominent role in most games, both physical and digital. The famous (or infamous) RNG (random number generator) is today’s most common modern equivalent of conventional dice. The history of dice is the history of the concept of chance, and the history of chance is the history of fortune and the divine.

DISCLAIMER: this video is for educational purposes and no copyright infringement is intended.

OTHER FACTS AND CURIOSITIES

● The image shown in 1:20 is a clay model used for hepatoscopy, the divination by the liver of an animal or a bird. In the Etruscan culture, the haruspex was the person trained to perform these kind of rituals.
● Divination by pebbles is commonly refer to as psepomancy.
● The sticks shown in 1:30 are known as Kau Chim, also known as lottery poetry, a fortune telling practice that originated in China.
● The depiction of Moses at 6:57 is not an actual image of the distribution of land from the Bible. In this picture, Moses is depicted with horns, as it’s the case with many other medieval manuscripts. This is due to a mistranslation by St. Jerome, the author of the Vulgatae.
● At 8:46, I misspelled the name of Rodolfo Lanciani (I said Manciani)
● The picture displayed at 9:05 is not an actual depiction of nut gambling.
● In 15:13 it is written “grey sea”. This is most likely a typo from perseus (see online resources), but I decided to leave it as they wrote it.

RESOURCES USED FOR THIS VIDEO

Published Resources:
● Arnold, P. The Encyclopedia of Gambling. Chartwell Books, 1977.
● Collins, A. “Alexander’s Visit to Siwah: a New Analysis”, Phoenix 68 (1), 2014, 62-77.
● David, F. N. Games, Gods and Gambling. Hafner Publishing Company, 1962.
● De Voogt, A. & Eerkens, J. W. “Cubic Dice: Archaeological Material for Understanding Historical Processes”, Kentron [online] 34, 2018, 99-108.
● Iles Johnston, S. Ancient Greek Divination. Blackwell, 2008.
● Lanciani, R. “Gambling and Cheating in Ancient Rome”, The North American Review 155 (428), 1982, 97-105.
● Reith, G. Gambling in Western Culture. Routledge, 1999.
● Richter, W. Die Spiele der Griechen und Römer. E. A. Seemann, 1887.

Online Resources:

Music:
Intro & Main theme: Fredji - Happy Life (Vlog No Copyright Music)

[palomaiznaola]

Muy interesante para saber la historia y el origen de cada juego porque eso nos ayuda a comprenderlo mejor. Muy bien montado y explicado y muy útil. Yo no soy aficionada al juego, pero está excelente explicación me anima a jugar. Muchas gracias

[jacksongolden]

Great channel, nice work. I got my degree in Anthropology focused on origins of sporting culture and this is all so fascinating like your Chaturanga video. Keep it up!

[rollerzleader]

Great video! And a good find too! I typed in "Origins of Gambling" & found this lol. Hopefully someday you'll cover a classic, and a bandit's personal favourite game **Hazard.** Played by Royals, Rogues, & Commoners alike. Usually in a dim lit setting, with smoke seductively dancing in the air, & a naught overall ambiance hehehehe, oooh yehh.. it's like sort of like Street Craps I might add lol

[dkennell]

Awesome vid! I was reading Cardono's book and didn't know what he meant by playing Talos - now I know that they actually used real bones as dice! Wow!

[heavenlyaristocratic]

this video helped me so much on my anthropology assignment, thank you <3

[astronato]

Very imformative. Keep up the good work. Thanks & Happy New Year

[hellrazer]

This is fascinating thank you for this

[sirig]

Muy interesante y el calidad de sus producciones son muy bien espero que te continúas

[NikolajLepka]

how are knucklebones not small objects?

[rosarodriguezdelcerro]

Interesante la relación. Los dioses sí jugaban a los dados. Habrá que decírselo a Einstein..😉