Every 10th find in Indus Valley Civilisation games-related
By IANSTuesday, February 8, 2011
LONDON - Every 10th find from the ruins of the Indus Valley Civilisation 4,000 years ago relates to some sort of game, says a recent study from Sweden.
Elke Rogersdotter from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden studied play-related artefacts found at excavations in the ruins of Mohenjodaro in present-day Pakistan.
The remains constitute the largest urban settlement from the Bronze Age in the Indus Valley, a cultural complex of the same era as ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, according to a Gothenburg statement.
Rogersdotter’s study shows some surprising results. Almost every 10th find from the ruined city is play-related.
They include, for instance, different forms of dice and gaming pieces.
“The marked quantity of play-related finds and the structured distribution shows that playing was already an important part of people’s everyday lives more than 4,000 years ago,” Elke said.
