Hnefatafl's Mysterious Origins

Board games have been played for thousands of years.  The ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians were avid players of board games.  There were board games at Troy long before its fabled war with the Greeks.  Miniature races, battles and hunts were invented and reinvented everywhere from Spain to China, from Hawaii to continental America.

The earliest games with a resemblance to hnefatafl appeared in ancient Greece and Rome.  The Greek game Petteia ("pebbles") shared with hnefatafl the method of capturing a piece by surrounding it by two enemies; it probably had similar rules of movement too.  The Roman game of Ludus Latrunculorum ("the game of little soldiers") was similar, and some sets even introduced a special piece on each side.  A game like Ludus Latruculorum was still played in tenth century Iran, while Petteia-like games survived everywhere from tenth-century Ireland to nineteenth-century Egypt.

Assuming the presence of Ludus Latrunculorum in Scandinavia and its similarity to Hnefatafl are not mere coincidence, it is unknown when one game was adapted into the other.  In order to date the invention of Hnefatafl one needs to find a board or a set of pieces that are unmistakably meant for the game: a square board with a marked central playing space, or an unequal set of pieces with a distinguished king piece belonging to the smaller side would be good indicators.  And so far there has been no such evidence from before the eighth century.

Next: The Growth and Spread of Hnefatafl