Editing Dominoes (section)

=== Chinese dominoes ===

{{further|Chinese dominoes}}

In China, early "domino" tiles were functionally identical to [[Chinese playing cards|playing cards]]. An identifiable version of [[Chinese dominoes]] developed in the 12th or 13th century.

The oldest written mention of domino tiles in China dates to the 13th century and comes from [[Hangzhou]] where ''pupai'' (gambling plaques or tiles) and [[dice]] are listed as items sold by peddlers during the reign of [[Emperor Xiaozong of Song]] (r. 1162–1189).<ref name="lo 2000"/> It is not entirely clear that ''pupai'' means dominoes, but the same term is used two centuries later by the Ming author [[Lu Rong]] (1436–1494) in a context that clearly describes domino tiles.<ref name="lo 2000"/> The earliest known manual on dominoes is the ''Manual of the Xuanhe Period'' which purports to be written by [[Qu You]] (1341–1427),<ref name="lo 2000"/> but some scholars believe it is a later forgery.<ref name=ZH>{{Cite news|url=http://mall.cnki.net/magazine/article/ZHWL200901006.htm|publisher=<span lang="zh">《中华文化论坛》2009年01期</span>|language=zh|script-title=zh:《宣和牌谱》瞿佑作辨伪|author=<span lang="zh">乔光辉、郭威、王骏</span>|access-date=2014-01-04|archive-date=4 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140104205527/http://mall.cnki.net/magazine/article/ZHWL200901006.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The traditional 32-piece Chinese domino set, made to represent each possible face of two thrown dice and thus having no blank faces, differs from the 28-piece domino set found [[Western world|in the West]] during the mid 18th century,{{Sfn|Pickover|2002|p=141}} although Chinese dominoes with blank faces were known during the 17th century.<ref>Lo, Andrew (2004) 'China's Passion for Pai: Playing Cards, Dominoes, and Mahjong.' In: Mackenzie, C. and Finkel, I., (eds.), Asian Games: The Art of Contest. New York: [[Asia Society]], pp. 224.</ref>
Each domino originally represented one of the 21 results of throwing two six-sided dice (2d6). One half of each domino is set with the pips from one die and the other half contains the pips from the second die. Chinese sets also introduce duplicates of some throws and divide the tiles into two [[Suit (cards)|suits]]: military and civil.<ref>{{cite journal|date=2003|title=Pan Zhiheng's 'Xu Yezi Pu' - Part 2|journal=[[The Playing-Card]]|volume=31|issue=6|pages=281–284|ref=Lo|last1=Lo|first1=Andrew}}</ref> Chinese dominoes are also longer than typical European ones.