Iran

Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies

ISSN: 0578-6967 (Print) 2396-9202 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rirn20

Game Boards and Other Incised Graffiti at

Persepolis

John Curtis & Irving Finkel

To cite this article: John Curtis & Irving Finkel (1999) Game Boards and Other Incised Graffiti at
Persepolis, Iran, 37:1, 45-48

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/05786967.1999.11834597

Published online: 23 Mar 2017.

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 GAME BOARDS AND OTHER INCISED GRAFFITI AT PERSEPOLIS

By John Curtis and Irving Finkel

The British Museum

The purpose of this short note is to draw atten-

tion to what are evidently two game boards which
have been crudely engraved on stonework at
Persepolis. 1 They are to be found on the flat sur-
faces at the bottom of two of the window openings 0 0 0 0
in the central section of the so-called Harem. The
windows are in the wall between the main hall of /IV

f
the Harem, which is now a museum, and the porti-
co on the south side of the courtyard. There are
four windows in this wall, two on either side of the
central doorway, and the boards are engraved in
the two windows to the east of the door (Fig.1).
These windows are 92-93 em wide on the inside 0 0 0 0

and 85-86 em wide on the outside and c. 1.52 m 0 0 0 0

deep. They are stepped in at a distance of c. 47 em
from the inside (thus accounting for the different
internal and external measurements) thereby cre-
ating a ledge against which a shutter, probably of
wood, could have been placed to close the window.2
The boards are positioned 76--78 em from the out-
side of the window, approximately in the middle of
the wall thickness. In one case (east window) the
board is in the middle of the window opening, and
in the other the board is close to the west jamb of
the window.
Each of the boards is rectangular and has 27
squares, arranged in three rows of nine. They mea-
sure 39 x 13 em (west window= A) (Fig. 2, Pl. XIVa)
and 29 x 14 em (east window= B) (Fig. 3, Pl. XIVb).
The incisions have been made by crudely drilling or
chipping shallow holes close together.
Graffiti game boards are common in many parts
of the world, and are characteristically located in sit-
uations where people can pass spare hours in com-
fort. The location of the present boards on the
Harem window-sills fits well into this general picture,
whether ancient or modern.
Whatever their date, the discovery of these two
boards involves something new for the historian of
games, since a board plan of 3 X 9 squares cannot in
fact be paralleled, either in antiquity or in modern
times. The question may then be asked, why claim
these as game boards at all, but the simple answer is,
in view of their nature, appearance and location,
what else realistically can they be?
Historically speaking, Iran has played an impor-
tant role in the spread of chess, and backgammon,
I
Fig. 1. Central section of the Harem Building at Persepolis show-
ing position of windows (A and B) with incised game boards
(Adapted from Schmidt 1953:fig. 105).
and we also know of ancient boards for the so-called
Game of Fifty-Eight Holes, and later games such
as biizi-ye qamish, the 'stave game', or merels (see
Murray 1952: 15, 95 and 47 respectively), but the
Persepolis boards clearly have nothing to do with
any of these games. Indeed, relatively little work has
been carried out on the broader history of this sub-
ject in Iran.
A board lay-out of this kind is perhaps most likely
to have been used for a race game where equal
pieces are moved around the track in competition.
The closest formal parallel is the classic Egyptian
game of senet, played on a board of 3 X 10 squares
(Murray 1952: 17), and also found elsewhere in the
Ancient Near East (Swiny 1980; Hubner 1992:
67-70), but it is most unlikely that this game has any-
thing to do with senet.

45
46 JOURNAL OF PERSIAN STUDIES

0 5cm

Fig. 2. Incised game board on window-siU A.

I
I '
\
~
'-- _\ _[----
0 Scm

Fig. 3. Incised game board on window-siU B.

.J

Fig. 4. Incised
'
design
.)

on window-siUA. Scalec.l:l.
Figs. 5-6. Incised designs on window in Palace ofDarius. Scale
unknoum. After AlkJtte de la Fuye 1928: figs. 6-7.
 GAME BOARDS AND OTHER INCISED GRAFFITI AT PERSEPOLIS
An alternative class of games that uses parallel
rows of 'houses' is that of the counting game man-
cala, where seeds are 'sown' in holes. Games of this
type are extremely widespread, but no examples
have been recorded from Iran, and in any case the
playing squares properly should be scooped-out
holes to accommodate many counters and fast play.
Accordingly, it remains for future discoveries to
provide more information about the nature and dis-
tribution of this 3 x 9 game board.
In the west window (A) there is in addition to the
game board another engraved design (Fig. 4). It is
positioned close to the inside edge of the window
near to the west side. It has been incised in the same
way as the boards. This is a much smaller composi-
tion, measuring just 5.5 X 4.3 em, and shows a geo-
metric pattern which seems to be partly based on the
swastika motif. This is much too small to have served
as a game board, and in any case the design is not
recognizable as that of a game board. Possibly this
design had some kind of magical significance. It
would seem to belong to a different tradition to two
graffiti noted and sketched by de Mecquenem in a
window in the Palace of Darius (Figs. 5-6; Allotte de
Ia Fuye 1928: 166--7, figs. 6--7), one of which shows
Islamic calligraphy with the name ofcAli.
What date are the game board graffiti?
Unfortunately, the archaeological evidence is not
helpful. Parts of the Harem building, and certainly
the window-sills, were never buried. According to
Schmidt (1953: 255) "two antae and some stone
doorways, windows, and niches of stone were ... visi-
ble ... before Herzfeld cleared a considerable por-
tion of (this) extensive structure and identified it as
the harem of Xerxes". Thus, the window-sills in the
Harem were always exposed and accessible and the
boards could have been engraved on them either
during the Achaemenid era when the building was
still occupied or at any period thereafter up to and
including modern times.
There is in fact evidence for graffiti at Persepolis
not only in the Achaemenid period when the build-
ings were in use but also in Sasanian and later times
(Schmidt 1953: 55). Apparently of Achaemenid date
are two very small scale incised drawings of human
heads on a fragment of sculpture (Herzfeld 1941:
251, pl. LXXII). 3 Graffiti are to be distinguished
from incised sketches that were intended as guide-
lines for the artists who painted the reliefs. Such
sketches can be seen on the robe worn by the king in
the Palace of Darius, the Central Palace (Tripylon)
and the Harem and elswehere. They show files of
lions and rosette designs (Schmidt 1953: 257, pis.
198A-B; Herzfeld 1941: pl. LXXII; Roos 1970; Tilia
1978: 44-57). 4
A number of graffiti date from the Sasanian peri-
od. Two show standing figures of princes, one
47
engraved in a doorway irt the Palace of Darius
(Herzfeld 1941: 307-8, fig. 401) and another on the
southern wall of the portico in the Harem (Allotte
de Ia Fuye 1928: fig. on p.168; Herzfeld 1941: 308-9,
fig. 402). Others, all in the Harem, show Sasanian
princes on horseback (Schmidt 1953: 258, pis.
199A-B; Calmeyer 1976: fig. 3). There are also
inscriptions of the Sasanian period: two texts in
Middle Persian in the Palace of Darius are ascribed
to the reign of Shapur II (AD 309-379) (Schmidt
1953: 223, n.ll, pl.157; Curzon 1892: II, 129).
Throughout the ages the ruins of Persepolis have
been a magnet for visitors- and many of them have
left an indelible mark of their presence at the site.
There are Arabic and Persian inscriptions dating
from the lOth century AD onwards, mostly in the
Palace of Darius (Schmidt 1953: 223, n.ll; Wilber
1969: 104-7) and there are modern Persian inscrip-
tions, often lightly incised, throughout the ruins.
European travellers, too, have often left a record of
their visit by irresponsibly carving their names onto
the exposed stonework. These inscriptions range in
date between the early 17th century and, regrettably,
recent times. Some of these names and dates have
been recorded by Curzon (1892: II, 156--7, 169).
There is extensive evidence, then, for secondary
inscriptions and graffiti at Persepolis, and they
range in date between the Achaemenid period and
the 20th century. Our game boards might derive
from any time during this long period. It is tempt-
ing, certainly, to associate the game boards with
the original inhabitants of the Harem, and it is
romantic to speculate that they might have whiled
away the long hours of inactivity and boredom by
playing games. However, it is difficult to imagine
that when the Harem wa$ in use anybody would
have been allowed to deface the finely finished and
highly polished window--sills with such crude
engravings. If the inhabitants had wanted to play
games on the window-sills it is reasonable to
assume that professional stonemasons would have
been brought in to engrave the boards, and that is
certainly not the case here. It is also unlikely that a
traveller or casual visitor to the site would have
taken the time and trouble needed to produce
such works. Temporary boards are usually drawn
on the ground or otherwise marked out in the sim-
plest possible way, and most travellers would have
been content with such an arrangement. The pres-
ence of two boards in adjacent windows also mili-
tates against the idea of their having been casually
engraved to meet an ad hoc demand. The implica-
tion here is that they were intended to fulfil a long-
term need, especially as engraving the boards was
not an easy matter and would have taken quite a
long time. This raises the interesting possibility that
the boards were engraved by shepherds or
48 JOURNAL OF PERSIAN STUDIES
goatherds who were passing the time while their
charges were grazing amongst the ruins. They
might have returned to the same spot day after day,
arid so would have made full use of the boards.
This is perhaps the most probable explanation, but
it is far from proven. The matter remains unre-
solved, and it is to be hoped that the identity of the
game in question might cast further light on this
interesting question.
1 Thanks are due to Professor M. D. Roaf for referring us to
the literature on graffiti at Persepolis.
2 When discussing the comparable windows in the Palace of
Darius, Schmidt (1953: 222) suggests that the shutters would
have been made of wood.
5 Richter (1946: 27-28) identified these heads as Greek work-
manship, an opinion with which Schmidt (1957: 67, n.16)
concurred. For the original position of this fragment of
sculpture, see Tilia 1978: 56. See also now Nylander and
Fremberg 1981~3.
4 Similar incised designs also occur on a stone slab from
Persepolis which is thought to have been an artist's drawing
board (Roos 1970). Another stone plaque found at
Persepolis in fragments has an incised design showing a
contest scene between Herakles and Apollo (Roaf and
Boardman 1980). It is thought that this was a preliminary
sketch for a painting in the Greek style.
Bibliography
Allotte de Ia Fuye, 1928. "Graffitis releves en 1928 dans les ruines
de Persepolis", RA 25: 159-168.
Calmeyer, P., 1976. "Zur Genese altiranischer Motive V:
Synarchie", AMINF 9: 6~95.
Curzon, G. N., 1892. Persia and the Persian 0ustion, 2 vols.,
London.
Herzfeld, E. E., 1941. Iran in the Ancient East, London and New
York.
Hubner, U.,1992. spiele und spielzeug im antillen Paliistina, Orbis
Biblicus et Orientalis 121, Freiburg.
Murray, H.]. R., 1952. A History of Board Games other than Chess,
Oxford.
Nylander, C., and Fremberg, J., 1981~3. "A foot-note from
Persepolis", Anadolu/Anatolia 22: 57-68.
Richter, G. M.A., 1946. "Greeks in Persia", AJA 50: 15-30.
Roaf, M. D., and Boardman, J., 1980. "A Greek painting at
Persepolis",]oumal of Hellmic Studies 100: 204-206.
Roos, P., 1970. "An Achaemenian sketch slab and the ornaments
of the royal dress at Persepolis", EW20: 51-f;9.
Schmidt, E. F., 1953. Persepolis 1: Structures, Re/Mfs, Inscriptions,
OIP LXVIII, Chicago.
- - , 1957. Persepolis II: Contents of the Tf'taSUry and Other
Discoveries, OIP LXIX, Chicago.
Swiny, S., 1980. "Bronze Age gaming stones from Cyprus", Repurt
of the Department of Antiquities Cyprus: 54-78.
Tilia, A. B. 1978. Studies and Restorations at Persepolis and Other Sites
ofFars II, Rome.
Wilber, D. N., 1969. Persepolis: the ArchaeolofD of Parsa, Seat of the
Persian [(jngs, London.
Pl. XIVa. Incised game board in window-sill A, looking south.

Pl. XIVb. Incised game board in window-sill B, looking south.