Culture Bones

The Game of Knucklebones

  • aka scatter jacks, snobs, astragalus, tali, dibs, fivestones, jacks,
  •  game of dexterity played
  • small objects
  • thrown up, caught
  • derived from the Ancient Greek
  • uses the astragalus (a bone in the ankle, or hock) of a sheep.[
  • and the talus bone in the human

Knucklebones are believed to be an early precursor of dice

EB1911 Greek Art – Greek Drawing of Women Playing at Knucklebones
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Astragali used for gaming in Mongolia
Pastern bones of an animal, for games like Knucklebones / Jacks
Courtesy Sarah Joy from United Kingdom Wiki
Replica Roman astragali
Courtesy Roland zh
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Left talus, lateral surface
An orthostat depicting people playing knucklebones from Carchemish (c. 8th century BC)
Courtesy Dosseman
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Pieter Bruegel the Elder – Children’s Games (detail) – Knucklebones
Māori children playing kōruru (Gottfried Lindauer, 1907)
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
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Children in Nepal playing astragaloi
Courtesy י Eli Shany אלי שני –
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Throwing of the Bones Sangoma Zulyu Doctor Diviner

Sangoma performing a divination by reading the bones after being thrown
Mycelium101
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