An old board game is discovered in a secret hidden room in the medieval castle

It is said to be around 5000 BC how the people got to play board games that are loved worldwide even in the 21st century. It is reported that a type of board game that has been loved by many people since ancient times has been discovered from hidden rooms of the medieval castle in Russia .

Выборгский музей-заповедник
https://vk.com/wall-97367755_4034

Archeologists Discover Medieval Board Game in Secret Castle Crypt in Russia
https://themoscowtimes.com/news/archeologists-discover-medieval-board-game-secret-castle-crypt-russia-62792

Medieval Russia: Ancient Board Game Discovered in Secret Castle Chamber
https://www.newsweek.com/medieval-russia-ancient-board-game-discovered-secret-castle-chamber-1108818

The team of the Vyborg Museum who was investigating Vyborg Castle in Leningrad province in Russia reported that "I found a board game from a hidden room inside the castle." In the board games found, patterns are engraved on clay bricks, and the investigation team thinks that it is "a kind of game called Nine Men's Morris ."

Nine, Men's, and Morris are battle-type board games, in which two players generally play with nine "people" called frames. First of all, if a player leaves a piece on the board and can arrange his three pieces in a row, he can declare "Mill" and exclude one opponent's frame . After arranging all the frames to each other, next we will aim for "Mill" to move the coma and arrange the three in a line. If either of the frames is 2, that player will no longer be able to make "Mill" and will lose.

This is the state of the boards used in Nine, Men's, and Morris before arranging the frames.

A board game similar to Nine, Men's, Morris has been played all over the world since ancient times, and it seems that the prototype of Nine Men's Morris was actually played for more than 2000 years ago. In addition to the ruins of the Roman Empire, games similar to Nine Men's Morris have been found from Asian ruins such as India and China.

by Tnarik Innael

Vyborg Castle was a medieval castle built on a small island in the Finnish Gulf surrounded by Finland in the north, Estonia in the south and Russia in the east, originally was built by the Swedish army in the 13th century. The large circular dome seems to be about 160 feet (about 48 m) in height, once used to be counted as "three gigantic castles in Finland".

After that, Sweden and the Principality of Novgorod fought ownership of Vyborg Castle for decades. Since then that Vyborg Castle is located at the border between Finland and Russia, it seems that the country that we own many times has moved. Recently, in 1944 the Soviets took over Vyborg Castle as their own territory and ownership was taken even when it became Russia, and it is managed as a museum at the time of article creation.

In Vyborg Castle excavation survey continues continuously in recent years, and the board game reported this time was excavated from the hidden room found among them. The hidden room is made in the basement of the castle, researchers said from the underground 3D scan data that "from the basement of Vyborg Castle to the town of Vyborg was bound by an underpass" It is.