From Latino Fox News

1,000-Year-Old Game Board Found in Mexico

Published February 23, 2012

| EFE

Archaeologists carrying out restoration at the Dzibilnocac site in the southeastern state of Campeche discovered a Mayan game board dating from more than 1,000 years ago, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History said.

A member of the team that found the artifact, Heber Ojeda, estimates the board was used between the 7th and 10th centuries during the Late Classic period of Dzibilnocac.

"It is an esgraffito scoreboard of approximately 50 centimeters (19.68 inches) on each side, which was discovered on the floor of the second highest space" in the building denoted A1, the archaeologist said.

Etched into the surface of the board are 58 rectangles of varying sizes and players would have used beans as game tokens, Ojeda said.

One of his colleagues, Judith Gallegos Gomora, said the board was designed for patolli, a game of chance described in Mayan codices and colonial Spanish chronicles.

She added, however, that the board bears a resemblance to the Maya quincunx, a schematic representation of the universe, and would likely also have been used for divination.

This image is not from the article - but it is a representation of patolli, from the Codex Florentinus, 1569.

This diagram shows various versions of the Mayan quincunx.  Interesting, no?  I found it in an online book published by the University of California Online Press from a book entitled Masks of the Spirit:  The Quincunx Variously Applied: a. Monte Albán Kan cross; b. Maya Kin glyph; c. Maya Lamat glyph;  d. Teotihuacán flower sign; e. Maya katun completion sign; f. Teotihuacán pecked cross;  g. Maya calendar from the Book of Chilam Balam of Kaua; h. Maya calendar from the Madrid Codex;  i. Aztec calendar from Durán; j. Mixtec calendar from the Codex Féjérvary-Mayer (a-e after Coggins 1980,  figs. 2a-d; f after Aveni 1980, fig. 71a;g-j after Aveni 1980, fig. 57).  I believe that it is meant to represent a three-dimensional concept of the heavens, the earth, and the underworld -- but I didn't read the book (just a few paragraphs of it) and so I could be wrong!  Here's the diagram - judge for yourself:

(Page 121, Masks of the Spirit, as presented online at UC Press E-Books Collection).

Pachisi-Patolli-Parcheesi

From The National Geographic
Prehistoric Parcheesi?
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett, National Geographic

Mexican archaeologist Rodolfo Cid sits near mysterious circles carved into stone not far from the pyramids of Teotihuacan, Mexico (file picture). The circles may have been surveyor's marks, calendars, or scoreboards for a Parcheesi-like game of chance called patolli, according to National Geographic magazine.

Though Voorhies will likely never know the purpose of the Chantuto circles [see earlier post], the new theory has already changed how she sees the prehistoric foragers, she said.

"I've spent a great deal of my life thinking about these particular people," she said, and the unexpected insight into their amusements "makes them seem more real to me."

Published December 13, 2010

Here is a modern American parcheesi board, from Wikipedia:

Here is a 19th century Pachisi cloth board with playing pieces, Sri Lanka, from the British Museum:

A graphic from 1569
Codex Florentinus from Historia de las cosas de Nueva España by Bernardino de Sahagún showing the board game Patolli
from Wikipedia

Korean Nyout, a "circle and cross" game
(Yut Nori - at Boardgamegeek.com)