This example was bought by the author in Switzerland.Īs an old English game, it used to be played with black and white pebbles on a board marked out with a trowel dug into village greens as well as in Taverns on boards marked with chalk on a table. In Germany, the game is called Muhle and in central Europe generally, the board is sometimes stepped. The game reached its peak popularity in Europe during the Fourteenth Century. European boards have been found in such places as the first city of Troy, within a Bronze age burial site in Ireland and at the Acropolis in Athens. Other boards have been found in Ceylon which were carved during the reign of Mahadithika Maha-Naga (9-21AD). Presumably an extension of the simpler Three Mens Morris, a Nine Mens Morris pattern is another of the boards that have been cut into the temple at Kurna, Egypt (~1440 BC). The game was widely played in England in AD1300 and visitors to the cathedrals of Norwich, Canterbury, Gloucester, Salisbury and Westminster Abbey can see boards cut into the cloister seats by monks. Roman boards were usually made of wood or tone although the rich occasionally had boards made of more exotic materials (Trimalchio had one of turpentine-tree and Martial speaks of an ivory board). 500BC.Ī couple of centuries on, Ovid mentions the game in 'Ars Amatoria'. The diagonals form is effectively the same game as Tic-Tac-Toe or Noughts and Crosses today and a board of this type has been found cut into the temple at Kurna, Egypt (~1440 BC) although this may well have been done at some later time.Īccording to Thomas Hyde (1908), the Chinese also played the game c. There seem to be two forms of the ancient game of Three Mens Morris one with diagonals and one without. The picture shows a pocket game of Mill from the author's collection. This game, with an ancestry so old it is another contender for the prize of 'Oldest game in the world', is known by a number of different names in England - Nine Mens Morris or Morelles or or Merrills or Merels or Mill or just plain Morris.

Dug hole nine mens morris