Editing Checkers (section)

=== Ancient games ===
[[File:1145-Playing-at-Draughts-q75-1517x1525.jpg|right|thumb|Men in medieval clothing playing checkers]]
Similar games have been played for  millennia.<ref name="strutt2"/> A board resembling a checkers board was found in [[Ur]] dating from 3000 BC.<ref name="gameplay2">{{cite book|last=Oxland|first=Kevin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l05TkZFbS24C|title=Gameplay and design|publisher=Pearson Education|year=2004|isbn=978-0-321-20467-7|edition=Illustrated|pages=333}}</ref> In the [[British Museum]] are specimens of [[ancient Egyptian]] checkerboards, found with their pieces in burial chambers, and the game was played by the pharaoh [[Hatshepsut]].<ref name="strutt2" /><ref name="Ellensburgh2">{{cite news|date=17 February 1916|title=Lure of checkers|pages=1|work=The Ellensburgh Capital|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yo0KAAAAIBAJ&pg=1525%2C2429787|access-date=2009-04-16}}</ref> [[Plato]] mentioned a game, πεττεία or ''petteia'', as being of Egyptian origin,<ref name="Ellensburgh2" /> and [[Homer]] also mentions it.<ref name="Ellensburgh2" /> The method of capture was placing two pieces on either side of the opponent's piece. It was said to have been played during the [[Trojan War#Ajax and a game of petteia|Trojan War]].<ref>{{cite web|date=9 December 2006|title=Petteia|url=http://www.personal.psu.edu/wxk116/roma/petteia.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061209122834/http://www.personal.psu.edu/wxk116/roma/petteia.html|archive-date=9 December 2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Austin|first=Roland G.|date=September 1940|title=Greek Board Games|url=http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Archives/Austin/index.html|url-status=dead|journal=Antiquity|location=University of Liverpool, England|volume=14|issue=55|pages=257–271|doi=10.1017/S0003598X00015258|s2cid=163535077 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090408090534/http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Archives/Austin/index.html|archive-date=8 April 2009|access-date=16 April 2009}}</ref> The [[Ancient Rome|Romans]] played a derivation of petteia called ''[[Ludus latrunculorum|latrunculi]]'', or the game of the Little Soldiers. The pieces, and sporadically the game itself, were called ''calculi'' (''pebbles'').<ref name="Ellensburgh2" /><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Peck|first=Harry Thurston|encyclopedia=Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities|title=Latruncŭli|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aentry%3Dlatrunculi&highlight=latrunculi|year=1898|publisher=Harper and Brothers|location=New York|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081008114931/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aentry%3Dlatrunculi&highlight=latrunculi|archive-date=8 October 2008|access-date=7 August 2021}}</ref> Like the pawn in [[chess]], alquerque was probably derived from πεττεία and latrunculi by removing the necessity for two pieces to cooperate to capture one, although, like Ghanaian draughts, the game could still be declared lost by a player with only one piece left.