Bear games Boardgames

Description

Bear games is a category of board games of which many have historical roots in the Roman Empire. They were played in parts of the Empire as far away as Turkey and France and are still played today, especially in Italy. All of the games are two-player abstract strategy board games. Normally, the game is played with three hunters and one bear on a patterned board. It bears similarity to the hunt games such as the Fox games, Rimau-rimau, and Bagha-Chall, however, there are no captures involved. The three hunters are trying to hem in the bear, and block its movements.

The closest relative of the Bear games are the Hare games. In this case, the hares are the "hunters" (a reversal in the naming procedure where the bear in the Bear games is the "hunted"), and there are three of them which is the same number of hunters in the Bear games. The difference is that the hares cannot move backwards in any way, whereas, the hunters can move in any direction. As a result, the boards used are also different. Another close relative is the game called Watermelon Chess. In one of the Bear game variants, the board is the same as that of Watermelon Chess. Furthermore, the game Sz'Kwa also uses the same board, although it is not actually related to the Bear games since the rules and game play are completely different.

Equipment & Supplies

Several different boards have been used for the play of this game. Several different motifs have been found at archaeological sites and ancient rock carvings that have been hypothesized to be Roman Bear Games. Archaeologists often refer to them as Roman Wheel Patterns. They are often placed at an entrance or threshold. It is possible, however, that some of them were never intended to be used as games but were instead good luck charms, protective motifs or simply artistic designs. They have been found on both horizontal and vertical surfaces, indicating that at least some of them were not used as game boards. One of the wheel patterns is nearly identical, at least topologically equivalent, with another design known from the Orient used to play Sz'kwa and Watermelon Chess

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This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Wikipedia contributors. (2015, November 18). Bear games. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:22, October 23, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bear_games&oldid=691285297", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.