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Who invented dice and when?
No one knows the answer to this question. It seems that many people and cultures discovered dice independently of each other. A partial list of lucky dice-playing ancestors includes Egyptians, Mayans, Chinese, Indians, Native Americans, Turks, and Iranians. We've probably forgotten someone. We're almost certainly forgetting someone.
Just know that dice are very, very old. But even though they're called dice, they weren't originally used for entertainment. Throwing a dice helped to find answers to troubling questions, to predict fate. Life was hard back then, not like it is now. People probably wanted to get good news from the gods about their future. Soon they started using dice to play the game. We think it was because they didn't like the gods' answer.
Of course the first dice were nothing like the dice we know now. At first, they were just coloured stones. The first such game pieces were discovered by amateur diggers in Turkey and Iran. By this point, they had been there for almost 5,000 years! In the tombs of the Egyptians, traces of ancient dice were found dating back to around 3000 BC.
How the ancients ‘played on their fingers’
When coloured stones got boring, sticks were used as dice. In addition, it kept many unnecessary materials—fruit bones, shells, split wood, and even phalanges of fingers—from going to waste. Sometimes, they were even designed to resemble real fingers, complete with skin and nail patterns. Creepy, right?
One side of the sticks was coloured or featured intricate carvings, making them the first dihedral cubes. The more sticks that landed with the coloured side up, the higher the score. Surprisingly, the worst outcome wasn’t having all the sticks fall with the unmarked side up. Instead, that was considered the highest score—10 out of 10, or 1 out of 1, depending on how many sticks were used.
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The first four-sided dice, or poor sheep.
The next ancestor of the modern dice were... small joints of paired hoofed animals. Sheep, for example. No, we're not wrong. Although who would have thought that the oldest gaming component came from a sheep? Or rather, two.
These dice were called astragals, from the Greek word for ankle. Historians believe that they appeared between 1783-1552 BC. They were carved or painted on their sides with different numbers of dots. Nice and neat, isn't it?
Of course, there's not enough sheep for everyone. Therefore, those who could afford it, played with four-sided ‘cubes’ made of more expensive materials - for example, precious metals. But it was the joints of animals that gave the name to dice.
At first, dice were not part of board games. They used to play quite an independent game called... ‘dice’. Everyone took turns throwing astragals, and the winner was the one who threw the most points. Would you like to get in the spirit of antiquity? We sell dice. It's not quite the same, but we're counting on your imagination.
No kidding, this game used to be taken very seriously. And sometimes it went far beyond harmless.
A man's harvest could be at stake, an inheritance, a throne. Even the outcome of a battle could be determined by a simple roll of the dice. People believed that the outcome of the game was predetermined by the gods, and therefore could not be influenced in any way.
Upgrade dice and sticks or stop throwing dice
Just throwing dice sooner or later will bore anyone. It's understandable. Therefore, after a few centuries, sticks and dice began to be used in board games. One of the oldest board games was the Egyptian ‘Senet’.
‘Senet’ was a dueling game in which you had to be the first to bring your chips to the end of the board. Sticks and dice were thrown to determine how far you could advance.
Wealthy people could afford jewelled chips and carved boards. The poor people drew the field directly on the floor.
The ancient Greeks and Romans did not use sticks, but they used bones with pleasure. But only for a while. Gradually they were replaced by ‘thali’ - long square-shaped dice with dots drawn on them. Although they were still similar to sticks, they were just bigger in size.
In Scandinavian countries such dice were used up to the middle of the 20th century! Is that even handy?
The first hexagonal dice. Ancient Roman gamblers.
Hexagonal dice first appeared in Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece. Ancient Greece existed from the late 3rd–2nd millennium BCE until 30 BCE, while Ancient Rome lasted from 753 BCE to 476 CE.
The dice of that time were far from perfect—many had chamfered corners, irregular shapes, and uneven sides, with some being wider than others. Apparently, this didn’t bother anyone back then.
Ancient Romans were passionate gamblers and played dice almost everywhere. Special gaming taverns were even established for this purpose. Who would have thought that people gathered in gambling arcades even then? Frescoes from that era depict quarrelsome players being thrown out of gambling establishments.
That was also when the first hustlers appeared. Some gamblers manipulated dice by:
- Weighting them with metal to make certain numbers appear more often,
- Sharpening edges to control how they rolled,
- Drilling holes to change their balance,
- Rearranging numbers to deceive opponents.
To ensure fair play, Romans began using the turricula—a tower designed for rolling dice. The turricula prevented dice from scattering across the table or falling to the floor. Inside, three plates caused the dice to tumble down, creating a pleasant ringing sound that delighted players. Only two turriculae have ever been discovered by archaeologists—one found in Germany in the mid-20th century, and the other in Egypt.
These towers are still in use today. Now known as "Dice Towers," they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
In Ancient Rome, dice were thrown by everyone, everywhere. However, as gambling turned from a harmless pastime into a widespread problem, authorities imposed a ban on dice games. The only ones allowed to play were guards, so they wouldn’t fall asleep during their shifts. For everyone else, dice games were only permitted during Saturnalia—a festival dedicated to Saturn, the god of agriculture and prosperity. Naturally, few people followed this rule, and gambling attracted people from all social classes, from the poor to emperors.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, dice games nearly disappeared. During the Dark Ages (400–1000 CE), gambling saw a significant decline. Archaeologists have found very few dice from this period. One can only wonder—what were people doing instead?
Dice in medieval Europe - Religion and gambling
From 1100 to 1450, the boom of board games using dice was experienced in Europe. By this time they had learnt to make the correct cubic shape, but they were still made by hand and in small quantities. There was a much stricter attitude towards fakes. Who had a hard time in medieval Europe were the cheats.
Times changed, but people didn't change with them. The rich of Europe lost fortunes in dice, and the poor lost their last savings. Since dice were used not only for gambling but also for fortune-telling, the church repeatedly tried to ban the game.
When gambling reached the clergy, Bishop Witold of Cambridge tried to channel the excitement of the monks. He devised a game where each dice combination signified a virtue - love, faith or chastity. The winner (oh, the lucky one!) got the right to mentor other monks. After a while, the Catholic Church did get the dice game banned. Something tells us that the monks were not very impressed with the bishop's proposal.
It was not until 1396 that the game of ‘dice’ was allowed again, although religion remained opposed.
‘Dice’ was also popular in pagan Russia. After the baptism of Russia (998), the Orthodox Church tried to ban the game. But among ordinary people it still remained popular.
Modern dice
Nowadays, two types of dice are produced: ‘imperfect’ and ‘perfect’.
‘Perfect’ are hand-carved for a particular casino. They are marked with the institution's monogram, a unique serial number and carefully polished. For such dice, only transparent plastic is used so that players are assured of the utmost honesty of the institution and the disposition to win the visitor. Before the dice are allowed on the gaming table, they make 100-200 throws and reject at the slightest inaccuracy. Just like in ancient Sparta.
‘Imperfect’ production dice are found in the boxes of our favourite board games and are happily collected by board players. These are mass-produced dice that don't go through such a rigorous selection process. With sharp and rounded corners, plastic and wooden, with three, six and even twenty faces.
Over the centuries, the cubes changed shape, material, became better, to reach our days and become an indispensable attribute of board games. Whoever you are, the man who invented dice, thank you. From the entire boardgaming world.
