Back to the Game: Reframing Play and Games in Context. XXI Board Game Studies Annual Colloquium, International Society for Board Game Studies, April, 24-26, 2018, Benaki Museum – Italian School of Archaeology at Athens, Lisbon, Associação Ludus, 2021

This volume has its genesis in the 21st Conference of the International Society for Board Game Studies (BGS) held in Athens in April 2018. A session was dedicated to ancient games as part of the ERC project Locus ludi. The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity (# 741520).

The identification of games, especially board games, and the study of their cultural role in ancient societies is a complex undertaking with many methodological issues. This pluridisciplinary book edited by Barbara Carè, Véronique Dasen and Ulrich Schädler focuses on case studies where games can be reframed in their archaeological and cultural contexts. Three axes, distributed according to the type of evidence and chronologically ordered, explore archeological sites and monuments, visual arts and literary genres ranging from the Late Minoan period (15th c. BC) to the reception of ancient ludic culture in contemporary literature.