Mancala boards
Tableros de mancala
- Date
- c. 600 · confidence medium
- Place
- Matara, Debub, Eritrea
- Credited to
- Peoples of the kingdom of Aksum
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Stone boards with two rows of holes for sowing games, in which pieces are distributed and captured by counting. Games of the mancala family (oware, bao, gebeta) exercise mental arithmetic across the continent.
The boards at Matara and Yeha date from the late Aksumite period; earlier aligned holes exist in Egypt and the Levant, whose function as a game is debated.
What it led to
- counting games spread across Africa and the Indian Ocean
- practical arithmetic in informal education
- modern mathematical study of combinatorial games