These three knucklebones exhibited at the Met are more than 3500 years old, and were found during the museum’s excavations of the necropolis at Assasif, Egypt, in 1915-1916.

They have been wonderful to draw and to use as a starting point for the world of knucklebones, offering a dizzying number of angles to explore in terms of games and playing, and making me further appreciate the lovely qualities and textures of bone.

The use of knucklebones (often referred to in Latin –astragalus, pl. astragali—or  Greek—astragalos, pl. astragaloi) for games, divination and/or in funerary contexts is remarkably widespread throughout the world. They started off being the actual knucklebones of sheep, goats, and other hoofed animals, but imitations of these bones would eventually make an appearance alongside them, crafted out of other bones or materials such as wood, stone, ivory, metal, or glass.

The ‘imitations’ would generally be made in roughly the same shape (e.g. this Egyptian one made from ivory, or these glass ones made centuries later in Greece) though sometimes the maker would create interesting variations while keeping to the shape – see this ‘bronze astragalus representing a dwarf’ at the British Museum (dated as ‘Classical’), this ape-shaped piece from 3rd-1st C BC Egypt at The Walters Art Museum, or these two baboons at the Met here and here, quite similar to the previous one.

In Egypt, knucklebones were used initially as randomising devices in games, and are seen, among other things, as precursors of dice. I watched an interesting lecture by Dr. Ada Nifosi (Lecturer in Ancient History; University of Kent), entitled Astragalomaniacs: Knucklebones in the Ancient World (watch it here).  In it, I learned of another Egyptian randomising device which I had not heard of before: throw sticks (see these dating from the New Kingdom or this lovely one from c. 1400–1295 B.C.).

Throw sticks were used in sets of four or more and could dictate a player’s moves in a game depending on how they fell: landing flat surface or rounded surface uppermost. They seem to have been used before knucklebones, but Nifosi tells us that around the 16th C BC, players started to use two knucklebones that were assigned numerical values as an alternative to the more traditional four throw sticks.

This beautifully crafted  Ancient Egyptian game box is roughly the same age as our knucklebones, possibly slightly older. The photographs show a pair of knucklebones included in the set. One side of the box has twenty squares, and was used to play the Game of Twenty Squares (also known as the Royal Game of Ur, which originated in Mesopotamia), whereas the opposite side has thirty, and was used to play Senet. The word Senet translates as ‘passing’ and the game was often included in funerary contexts. You can learn more about the game and how to make one and play in this resource by the Royal Albert Memorial Museum.

Nifosi refers to Peter Piccione’s suggestion that the game of Senet was initially secular, and then elements were added to certain squares that alluded to the journey through the underworld. The introduction of these elements coincides in time with the introduction of knucklebones, though it is not known whether these two changes are connected – it is certainly an interesting idea. According to the Met, knucklebones are the only casting devices represented in New Kingdom playing scenes.

Of course, knucklebones were (and are) not only used as casting devices, and are also a game in their own right. In the Classical world, in addition to being used in a version of fivestones or jacks, they were also used for divination and were linked to Eros (see this knucklebone-shaped vase depicting Eros; the poet Anacreon wrote of the ‘Astragals of Eros’, or the Dice of Love) and Aphrodite (see this mirror depicting her playing knucklebones with Pan).

I particularly loved Ada Nifosi’s mention of an epigram in the Palatine Anthology about a boy called Connarus who had received a prize of 80 knucklebones for a writing competition, ‘amid the applause of the boys’. It reminded me of children carrying bulging bags of marbles a few decades ago, and frantically card-swapping to build up their collections. I found a further piece by the same epigrammist (Asclepiades of Samos) that also refers to knucklebones, in this case to their role in matters of the heart:

I am not yet two and twenty, and life is a burden to me. O Loves, why do you thus maltreat me? Why set me afire? For if I perish, what will you do? Clearly, Loves, you will play, silly children, at your knuckle-bones as before.

There are a great many depictions of knucklebones in classical art. Perhaps one of the most famous examples is this sculpture of a young girl playing, exhibited at the Berlin Altes Museum, which was most likely created for someone who died young. This sculpture of a boy with bag of astragaloi (3rdC BC) and this one of women playing (c. 300 BC) are also good examples, but I think my favourite is the marble sculpture of a boy biting the limb of his opponent (the second figure is now lost, but the limb remains!), found at the Baths of Titus and possibly dating to the 1st century.

Versions of the game of knucklebones or fivestones (snobs, tali, dibs, jacks, jackstones, astragalus) are played all over the world, sometimes with stones, pebbles or shells instead.

In Korea, the game of gonggi originated with pebbles but nowadays it is common to use special brightly coloured plastic sets. In Iran a game played with five stones is variously known as panj panj, besh dash, rag-rag bazi or ye ghol do ghol.

In India, we find a game with five or seven stones known as gitta, gutte or pacheta (see video). In New Zealand, there is a traditional Maori game with five stones called koruru or ruru.

In Mongolia, knucklebones are called shagai and they are collected for different games as well as fortune telling. In musun shagai, a game invented in the 19th century, players (known as ‘ice shooters’) use knucklebones from larger animals and fill them with lead, which they throw/slide on ice. It reminds me a little of bocce or boules, though it seems a lot more forceful.  You can see a great report by NPR here, and watch the ice shooters in action here.

I also remembered this modern piggy version of knucklebones, still in keeping with the animal theme.

And it seems one could go on indefinitely, listing all the different forms and versions of knucklebones in the world.

I came across an article in Russian by Julia Kustova entitled Children’s Toys Made of Bones and Rituals with them at Khakases, which describes 20th C. customs in Khakassia. It contained some wonderful images of toys made from bones [which I have extracted here, with credits], and explanations of different ways in which knucklebones were played with. They reminded me of the bone dolls that sit next to the Edwardian Shoe Doll at Edinburgh’s Museum of Childhood, which were part of Edward Lovett’s collection. He collected several of these bone dolls, at least one of which –a rather smart one– can also be seen at Hove Museum, and another at the V&A Museum of Childhood.

Drawing these bones was a lot like drawing a beautiful, arid landscape dotted with porous rocks and ochre tones. At one point the colours made me look up Turner’s Sun Setting Over a Lake.  They made me think of the bones inside our own bodies, of different ways things can be brought to life, and of recurring patterns and beauty in our own anatomy and in nature.

There is something appealing and possibly truthful about chance featuring so heavily in life, love and death. While some might say that a knucklebone is a knucklebone, it was particularly rewarding to draw these specific bones, millenia after the animals they came from died and the bones were given a new purpose. It made me want to hold them in my hands, feel their textures and bumps on all four sides, and try my luck.