Editing Liubo (section)

==Equipment==

Liubo boards and game equipment are often found as grave goods in tombs from the Han dynasty. Various types and sizes of Liubo board have been unearthed, made from a variety of materials, including wood, lacquered wood, pottery, stone and bronze. Some of the boards are simple square slabs of stone or wood, but others are supported by knobs at the four corners, and some are built as tables with long legs. Regardless of their size or shape, the common feature of all Liubo boards is the distinctive pattern that is carved or painted on their surface:

[[File:LiuboBoardDiagram.png|center]]

All excavated boards have the angular V-shaped marks at the corners and L-shaped marks at the center of the edges, as well as the central square and T-shaped protrusions, and most boards also have four marks (usually circular but sometimes a decorative pattern) between the corner mark and the central square. However, on some boards each circular mark is replaced by a straight line joining the corner mark to the corner of the inner square, and in a few cases there is no mark between the corner and the square at all.

[[File:Lacquered Liubo Chess Set.jpg|thumb|200px|A [[lacquer]]ed Chinese liubo board game set excavated from Tomb No. 3 of [[Mawangdui|Mawangdui site]], [[Changsha]], Hunan province, China, dated to the 2nd century BCE during the [[Western Han dynasty]]]]

In many tombs only the Liubo board has survived (especially if made of stone or bronze), and it can be assumed that any associated game pieces have decayed, whereas in other cases the game pieces (which are often made of ivory) have survived but the Liubo board (which is often made of wood or lacquer) has rotted away. However, in 1973 a unique, complete set of Liubo equipment in a lacquer box was discovered in a 2nd-century BCE tomb at [[Mawangdui]] (believed to be that of the son of the Marquis of Dai). This Liubo set comprises the following items (the Chinese description of the items in the inventory of grave goods that was found in the tomb are given in brackets):<ref>{{cite journal | author=熊传新 (Xiong Chuanxin) | script-title=zh:谈马王堆3号西汉墓出土的陆博 |trans-title=Discussion of the Liubo set unearthed from the No. 3 Western Han tomb at Mawangdui | journal=文物 (Cultural Relics) | volume=1979 | issue=4 | pages=35–39 | language=zh}}</ref>
*1 lacquered wooden game box (45.0 × 45.0 × 17.0&nbsp;cm.) [博一具]
*1 lacquered wooden game board (45.0 × 45.0 × 1.2&nbsp;cm.) [博局一]
*12 cuboid ivory game pieces (4,2 × 2.2 × 2.3&nbsp;cm.), six black and six white [象其十二]
*20 ivory game pieces (2.9 × 1.7 × 1.0&nbsp;cm.) [象直食其廿]
*30 rod-shaped ivory counting chips (16.4&nbsp;cm. long) [象筭三十枚]
*12 ivory throwing rods (22.7&nbsp;cm. long) [象□□□□ (last four characters obliterated)]
*1 ivory knife (22.0&nbsp;cm. long) [象割刀一]
*1 ivory scraper (17.2&nbsp;cm. long) [象削一]
*1 eighteen-sided die with the numbers "1" through "16" and characters meaning "win" and "lose" [not listed in the inventory]

[[File:6 jadeite Liubo game pieces.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Six [[jadeite]] Liubo game pieces from the tomb of King [[Zhao Mo]] of [[Nanyue]] (reigned 137 BC&nbsp;– 122 BC)]]
The six black and six white game pieces are the main game pieces to be moved around the board, and similar sets of cubic or cuboid game pieces made from ivory, [[jadeite]] or [[rock crystal]] have been found in several other tombs. In at least one case the game pieces are not distinguished by colour, but by having an engraving of a tiger on the pieces of one set and an engraving of a dragon on the pieces of the other set.<ref>{{cite book | author=大葆台汉墓发掘组 (Dabaotai Han Tomb Excavation Group) | script-title=zh:北京大葆台汉墓 |trans-title=The Han tomb at Dabaotai in Beijing | publisher=Wenwu chubanshe | year=1989 | location=Beijing | page=53 | isbn=7-5010-0238-X | language=zh}}</ref> One game piece on each side is designated as a commander.<ref name="GuoEymanSun">{{Cite book |last=Guo |first=Li |title=Games & Play in Chinese & Sinophone Cultures |last2=Eyman |first2=Douglas |last3=Sun |first3=Hongmei |date=2024 |publisher=[[University of Washington Press]] |isbn=9780295752402 |editor-last=Guo |editor-first=Li |location=Seattle, WA |pages= |chapter=Introduction |editor-last2=Eyman |editor-first2=Douglas |editor-last3=Sun |editor-first3=Hongmei}}</ref>{{Rp|page=6}}

The twelve long rods are two sets of the six throwing sticks that the players use to determine their moves, and which the game is named after (Liubo="six sticks"). Most Han stone pictures of Liubo show the players throwing sticks onto a mat between themselves (with the Liubo board to the side of the mat), and ceramic model Liubo sets such as the one excavated in 1972 from [[Lingbao, Henan|Lingbao]] in Henan province show six sticks lined up neatly between the two players.<ref>{{cite web | title=The green-glazed liubo-playing pottery figurines | publisher=Cultural China | url=http://www.cultural-china.com/chinaWH/html/en/History2041bye5118.html | access-date=2009-06-26}}</ref>

Sets of thirty rod-shaped counting chips have also been found in association with Liubo sets from other tombs.<ref>{{cite journal | author=莱西县文化馆 (Laixi County Culture Hall) | script-title=zh:山東萊西縣岱墅西漢木槨墓 |trans-title=The Western Han timber-chambered tomb at Daishu in Laixi county in Shandong | journal=文物 (Cultural Relics) | volume=1980 | issue=12 | page=15 | language=zh}}</ref>

However, the twenty ivory game pieces and the eighteen-sided die in the Mawangdui set are not typically associated with Liubo boards in other tombs, and it is possible that they were not used for playing Liubo, but were equipment for a different game. A similar eighteen-sided die with numbers "1" through "16", "win" and "take a drink" was found in association with two sets of twenty copper, coin-shaped tokens (one set inscribed "Number 1" through "Number 20", and the other set inscribed with three-character lines of poetry) in a Han tomb at [[Mancheng County]] in [[Hebei]]. No Liubo board or Liubo game pieces were found in the tomb, and because of the inscription "take a drink" (酒來) on one face of the die, the die and sets of tokens are supposed to have been used for a drinking game.<ref>{{cite book | author=中国社会科学院考古研究所 (Archeology Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) | script-title=zh:满城汉墓发掘报告 |trans-title=Excavation report for the Han tomb at Mancheng | publisher=Wenwu chubanshe | year=1980 | location=Beijing | pages=271–274 | language=zh}}</ref>