Boys and girls collected knucklebones and played games like marbles or jacks with them.
They threw them, and each side of the bone is worth a different number of points.
Knucklebones, 200 B.C.–A.D. 100
Detail: playing knucklebones
Vessel with a Girl Riding Piggyback on a Satyr, 470–460 B.C.
Look at how the girl being carried here has her knee bent.
And the girl on the vase at the right covers the eyes of the person carrying her.
This game goes like this:
You and a friend balance a tall stone upright on the ground and take turns trying
to knock it over with a pebble or ball.
If you knock it over first, you get a piggyback ride from your friend,
who can only hold on to one of your legs, which you have to bend at the knee. You have to struggle to keep your balance.
Your friend has to try to touch the stone while carrying you.
Hold your hands over your friend's eyes to make it harder!
Statuette of Two Girls Playing Piggyback, about 300 B.C.
