A late Iron Age cremation grave, dated to the second half of the first century BC, excavated from a site in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, contains an apparently unique set of glass gaming pieces. The gaming pieces are visually striking because of their distinctive appearance: the twenty-four opaque or semi-translucent coloured glass domes (six white pieces, six yellow, six red and six green), each with adorned with decorative spiral motifs, seem to comprise a complete set of game pieces for what may be an unknown four-player game. They were found in a rich burial containing five Dressel 1B wine amphorae and an Italian silver cup, along with other grave goods. Some account of the pieces is given by Donald Harden in Stead’s archaeological report (Stead, 1967), along with a scientific analysis by Tony Werner and Mavis Bimson, based on spectrographic and X-ray examination. Harden describes the game pieces as being “of the greatest interest and rarity,” noting “not only is there is no comparable set extant; there is not even a single gaming piece of the same form and decoration which can be cited as a parallel, whether contemporary or not” (Stead, 1967 p. 15). Harden goes on to suggest “the places where we could most reasonably expect to find parallels to these pieces are eastern and southern Gaul, the Alpine region and the upper Rhineland, and the Po valley, and it is likely that in time parallels to them in or more of those areas will turn up” (Stead, 1967 p. 16). While Harden’s account of the glass pieces emphasises their unique significance for the double-spiral motif, and Werner and Bimson’s analysis suggests the yellow pieces show the earliest example of the use of lead and tin as an opacifying agent, the pieces are also thought to represent a unique example of a game for four players, described by Stead as “similar to a game played in India on a board with cruciform marking. This game was [...] patented with the name ‘ludo”’ (Stead 1967, p. 19). Footnotes in Stead suggest that other examples of what could also be glass gaming pieces for a four player game – or at least incomplete sets of glass gaming pieces that can be organised into four groups by design or colour – have also been found in a number of Italian locations, including sites in the Po Valley. This paper will seek to present several examples of Iron Age Italian gaming pieces, and to offer some comparison to the Welwyn Garden City pieces in order to draw attention to what may be examples of a hitherto overlooked four-player game. (A version of this paper, without the note on game boards, appears in the Board Game Studies Journal 9 (2015) pp. 17-40.)

Simple race games, played with dice and without choice of move, are known from antiquity. In the late sixteenth century, specific examples of this class of game emerged from Italy and, assisted by the medium of printing, spread rapidly into other countries of Europe. Pre-eminent among these was the Game of the Goose, which was to spawn thousands of variants over the succeeding centuries to the present day, including educational, polemical and promotional versions mirroring many aspects of human life. The paper deals with the early history of these games, concentrating on their philosophical background, numerology and symbolism.

The Bodleian Library's John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera contains three examples of the early printed board game, The Royal Pastime of Cupid or Entertaining Game of the Snake. According to Digital Bodleian records, one was published by James Lumsden & Son, c. 1810; another by Laurie & Whittle, 1794; and the third by William Dicey, also 1794. This paper provides some account of the game and its relation to the Game of the Goose; it discusses the three Bodleian examples and presents evidence to show the date of the Dicey publication is likely to have been at least half a century earlier than the 1794 date stated in the catalogue (i.e. between 1736–1740); that is, between the dates William Dicey acquires the Bow Churchyard press and Cluer Dicey becomes a partner and the Dicey imprint changes to “W. & C. Dicey” or “Dicey & Co”.

In 2010 a Roman token was discovered in the mud of the Thames near Putney Bridge in London. When the token was discovered to have an erotic image on one side and a Roman numeral on the other, and was identified in a Museum of London press release as a rare Roman “brothel token”, the press reported on the story in the expected manner, for example: “A Roman coin that was probably used by soldiers to pay for sex in brothels has been discovered on the banks of the River Thames” (Daily Telegraph, 4 Jan 2012) and “Bronze discs depicting sex acts, like the one discovered in London, were used to hire prostitutes – and directly led to the birth of pornography during the Renaissance” (The Guardian, 4 Jan 2012). Even before this particular spate of media interest, these curious tokens have generated confusion, speculation and prurience – often simultaneously. They are of interest to games scholars because the speculation often includes the suggestion these objects may have had a ludic function, and were used as game counters. This paper examines some of the proposals that have been offered by way of explanation of these peculiar objects, concluding they are neither "brothel tokens" nor game pieces, but are likely to have been locker tokens.

April 15 to 18, 2015 at the Swiss Museum of Games, La Tour-de-Peilz. For further information see http://www.museedujeu.ch/fr/specialistes/boardgamstudies or contact boardgamestudies2015@gmail.com

The Board Game Studies Colloquium is the annual gathering of the International Society for Board Game Studies, an interdisciplinary group dedicated to research on board games and the history and development of board games around the world. It assembles - each year in a different country - a wide range of scholars, curators, inventors, collectors, and enthusiasts from around the world to present and discuss new researches in the field. ​ The 21st annual Board Game Studies Colloquium is the first one to be held in Greece and it will be hosted by the Benaki Museum and the Italian School of Archaeology at Athens, from Monday 23rd April to Thursday 26th April 2018. It is organized by Barbara Care', Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Classical Archaeology, in collaboration with Véronique Dasen, professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Fribourg, principal investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant Project “Locus Ludi. The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity”, and Ulrich Schädler Director of the Swiss Museum of Games and partner of the ERC project. ​ In the 2018 Colloquium, subtitled "Dialogues and Interactions", a special emphasis will be put on the role of games as “vehicles” of cultural transmission and interaction. Ancient game-related material evidence, the continuity and the reception of antiquity in board games of different ages will be explored. Papers on other aspects of Board Game Studies, in any academic field, will be equally welcome. ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Barbara Carè (Italian School of Archaeology at Athens) Véronique Dasen (University of Fribourg) Ulrich Schaedler (Swiss Museum of Games) For further informations, please visit our website: www.bgs21.com

A late Iron Age cremation grave, dated to the second half of the first century BC, excavated from a site in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, contains an apparently unique set of glass gaming pieces. The gaming pieces are visually striking because of their distinctive appearance: the twenty-four opaque or semi-translucent coloured glass domes (six white pieces, six yellow, six red and six green), each with adorned with decorative spiral motifs, seem to comprise a complete set of game pieces for what may be an unknown four-player game. They were found in a rich burial containing five Dressel 1B wine amphorae and an Italian silver cup, along with other grave goods. Some account of the pieces is given by Donald Harden in Stead's archaeological report (Stead, 1967), along with a scientific analysis by Tony Werner and Mavis Bimson, based on spectrographic and X-ray examination. While Harden's account of the glass pieces emphasizes their unique significance for the double-spiral motif, and Werner and Bimson's analysis suggests the yellow pieces show the earliest example of the use of lead and tin as an opacifying agent, the pieces are also thought to represent a unique example of a game for four players, described by Stead as "similar to a game played in India on a board with cruciform marking. This game was [...] patented with the name 'ludo'" (Stead, 1967, p. 19). Footnotes in Stead suggest that other examples of what could also be glass gaming pieces for a four player game---or at least incomplete sets of glass gaming pieces that can be organized into four groups by design or colour---have also been found in a number of Italian locations, including sites in the Po Valley. This paper presents several examples of Iron Age Italian gaming pieces, and offers some comparison to the Welwyn Garden City pieces in order to draw attention to what may be examples of a hitherto overlooked four-player game.

In 2010 a Roman token was discovered in the mud of the Thames near Putney Bridge in London. When the token was discovered to have an erotic image on one side and a Roman numeral on the other, and was identified in a Museum of London press release as a rare Roman “brothel token”, the press reported on the story in the expected manner, for example: “A Roman coin that was probably used by soldiers to pay for sex in brothels has been discovered on the banks of the River Thames” (Daily Telegraph, 4 Jan 2012) and “Bronze discs depicting sex acts, like the one discovered in London, were used to hire prostitutes – and directly led to the birth of pornography during the Renaissance” (The Guardian, 4 Jan 2012). Even before this particular spate of media interest, these curious tokens have generated confusion, speculation and prurience – often simultaneously. They are of interest to games scholars because the speculation often includes the suggestion these objects may have had a ludic function, and were used as game counters. This paper will look at some of the proposals that have been offered by way of explanation of these peculiar objects.