Ancient Board Games

Board games that people were playing centuries or millennia before anyone thought to call them that, implemented with their real historical rules rather than a simplified version. Hnefatafl is the Viking siege game, and it is deliberately asymmetric: one side escapes, the other surrounds. Bao is the deep East African mancala, relay-sown and genuinely hard. Mū Tōrere is the traditional Māori game on an eight-pointed star, which looks trivial until you try to force a win. Each carries a note on where it comes from and how it was played.