The ancient Romans invented
more games than any other civilization.  Much of daily life was devoted
to playing games.  Our modern games of marbles also came from the ancient
Romans.  The Roman game of 'nuts', the equivalent to marbles, finds
its beginning with Christmas.  At the festival of Saturnalia the Romans
gave each other gifts, which included bags of 'nuts' and marbles. 
Saturnalia (winter solstice) is the precursor to Christmas.  The game
of marbles was very popular with Roman children, especially during
Saturnalia. 

There are many references
to the Roman game of 'nuts'.  Publius Ovidius Naso (43BC-18AD), or
the Roman poet called Ovid wrote of the game.  The last Emperor Romulus
Augustus played the game as a child.  There are also a number of bas-reliefs
depicting children playing the game of 'nuts' (personal communication
with Ginny Lindzey).  You may find pictures of these in books by the
Museum of London. 

What were the rules to the
Roman game of 'nuts'?  No one knows!  The game rules have been lost
with the ancient Romans.  However, like many other Roman ball games,
the game still may be with us in some form.  European Games like Archboard
(Nine Holes), line shooting and Ring taw may have their origin in
ancient Rome.  In the game of Archboard, the players take turns bowling
their marbles at a "bridge" with nine Roman arches.  Each arch is labeled
at the top with: VII, V, III, IX, II, IV, and VIII .  If, a marble
enters into an arch then, the player scores the number of points shown
at the top of the arch.  A total of 45 points are required to win. 
In the game of Ring Taw, the players flick their shooter marble toward
a target marble in a circle 10 feet in diameter.  If a target marble
is knocked out of the circle, then the player scores a point.  The
player with the most points scored wins.  The essentials of shooting
'nuts' and marbles is to shoot or bowl at some form of a target. 

In the ancient world Roman children
were not the only children to play games with marbles.  However, it
is not known what these games may have been.  The oldest marbles that
have been found date to 3000 BC.  They were a group of rounded semi-precious
stones that were buried with an Egyptian Child at Nagada.  The British
Museum has marbles from Crete that date to 2000 -1700 BC.  They were
found at the Minoan site of Petsofa (personal communication with Lucilla
Burn of the British Museum).  In North America engraved marbles have
been found in ancient Native American earthen mounds (Britannica). 

Now in discovering where our
modern names for 'marbles' originate from is of historical interest
to the marble collector.  The French word for a toy marble is 'bille'
which means 'little ball'.  The word 'bille' appears as early as the
12th century (Dauzat's Etymological Dictionary).  The Dutch
word for marbles is 'knikkers'.  Children in New York used the term
'knikkers' straight into the 19th century (Gartley and
Carskadden).  The word knikker bakker originally referred to a Dutch
ceramic marble maker (marble baker).  It is from the Greeks that we
get the word 'marmaros'.  However, the word 'marbles' was not used
in England until 1694.  It was not until toy marbles were fashioned
from marble stone and imported from Germany does the term 'marbles'
appear (Gartley and Carskadden).  Before that time the English word
for marbles was either 'bowls' or 'knickers' (Oxford's English Dictionary). 

Like with Roman Children the
game of marbles was a popular past time with European children of
the 16th through the 20th centuries.  The (1560)
painting by Peter Brueghel depicts children playing marbles.  Many
other paintings and engravings depict this popular past time.  There
is an engraving by Jacob von der Heyden (1632), a painting by Hermann
Saftleven (1634), and a painting by Cats (1622) to name just a few. 

There are nine marble games
that can be found on 17th and 18th century Dutch
wall tiles (Gartley and Carskadden ).  They include the Roman game
of 'nuts', nine holes, pyramid, line shooting, ( schreefje shieten
), stuiken, ring taw, baggora, five stones and rolduitje.  To learn
more about 'History and Identifications for the Archaeologist and
Collector' we recommend the book (Colonial Period And Early 19th-
Century Children's Toy Marbles) by Gartley and Carskadden.  This book
explores the history and identification of pre-1850 toy marbles. 

This article is an attempt to
dig a little further into the history of toy marbles than the Colonial
period that Gartley and Carskadden have explored.  However, there is
very little information available on this subject.  Hopefully, this
discussion with the origin of the game of marbles will be explored
further.  I would like to thank Jane Walker for getting me started
with this quest.  The British Museum was especially helpful in sharing
the information that they have on their collection of ancient toy
marbles.  Also, I want to thank Ginny Lindzey for her information on
this subject.  There is more information to be found of that I am sure. 

A collection of ancient toy marbles
can be found in the British Museum, on exhibition in Room 69, case
9.  The grayish-white stone marble is Roman and was found at Carthage. 
The Roman glass marbles were all found in Egypt.  The three smaller
ones were found from the site of Oxyrhyncus.  They may date as late
as the 3rd or 4th century AD (personal communication
with Lucilla Burn).  To learn some additional information about the
exhibition of ancient marbles from the British Museum go to The
Marble Museum's News Page.  There you will find copies of
two e-mails from the British Museum, including their thoughts on how
a Roman Glass marble was made.