Mancala/Oware, a math game with a 5000-year-old history
To close out the math posts, here's an ancient board game from Africa. Today, we can learn to play online. It's usually played on a wooden board, but in a pinch, players can use an egg carton and forty-eight small stones, seeds or marbles. Mancala has a long history. Also called oware, it has many variants. Math began among the Ancient Sumerians, and this game is thought by many to have originated with them, five millennia ago.
Was its original function record-keeping, or did it have a ritual purpose? Historians aren't sure, but the presence of the game boards at African temples, laid out in alignment with the rising and setting sun, suggests some sort of symbolic significance.
It is thought that Arab traders brought the game from Sumeria (today Iraq and Kuwait) to ancient Egypt, from whence it spread over Africa and beyond. In its various forms, this mathematical game of skill and strategy is still played widely today.