ancient hippodrome ball game from Constantinople

On the 17th October, a Tweet with three images was posted by @SarahEBond about the remarkable ‘Kugelspiel’ (ball game) from the hippodrome in Constantinople: ‘… Visitors to the Hippodrome at Constantinople could bet on multi-colored balls that raced down a mini-horse track. https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/ASPV6SQEN4XOFAD4T66RT4ZYHG2CKPK2 … …’. Sarah Bond is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Iowa and the Trust follows her on Twitter.

The Kugelspiel is a damaged, carved, hollowed block of marble which includes a zig-zag ramp. It was found in 1834 near the great hippodrome or horse-racing stadium – At meydanı – at Constantinople in Turkey. It is 77 cm high, 55 cm wide and 57 cm deep and it is on display in the Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst (Sculpture Collection and Museum of Byzantine Art) at Berlin in Germany. It has been identified as an ancient ball game, made in about AD 500, possibly used for gambling. It is a ‘tower’ ball game which has been designed to represent a hippodrome, with the seating-stand forming the zig-zag ramp. Small, different-coloured balls would be inserted at the top, and the first ball to emerge at the bottom would be the winner*. The different chariot-racing teams competing in the hippodrome would, of course, have carried different team colours.

Apart from the interest of the game itself, and its association with the hippodrome, it is decorated with scenes from a hippodrome or Roman circus. The back includes a large archway, apparently representing that of the hippodrome here.
From The Serpent Column: a cultural biography by Paul Stephenson (2016): ‘… The front[back] of the block is carved into an arch, through which the gambler would shove his hand to drop the ball through an opening. Above the arch a row of figures is carved, perhaps intended to depict the kathisma [the imperial box]. Two chariots race across the lowest register on the back[front] of the block, from the viewer’s right to left, chasing a third, victorious chariot on the right-hand side, and chased by a fourth on the left-hand side. The lower corners are carved into the turning posts that marked the ends of the euripas [central barrier]. There are two further carved registers on the block’s sides, featuring figures and scenes from the staging of the games. In the upper registers, partisans hold banners aloft and musicians play flutes, while the middle register on the left[right] [side] features features the lot-drawing machine, by which the charioteers’ lanes were assigned, its handle turned by one figure while another, an unmounted charioteer, cracks his whip. The middle register on the right[left] side shows a victorious charioteer on horseback and a viewer watching him from an opened window, placed above the winning chariot …’.

The Trust has retrieved evidence of games and gambling from the site of the Colchester Roman circus, during our investigations here in 2004-7, in the form of three Roman counters. Two of the counters are made of pottery, while the third, made of green glass, is larger than most board-game counters and may have been used as a reckoning counter: ‘… All three were probably used by spectators for playing board games between races, with the grids for playing probably scratched into the surface of the wooden seating. Such an interpretation of the counters from the Colchester circus is suggested by grids found scratched into the stone seats of the stadium at Aphrodisias [in Turkey] … An alternative possibility is that one or more of the counters was used for reckoning, which might relate them to the … stylus from [a nearby site]. This may have been used to record wins, losses or even deaths by a clerk or overseer of one of the racing factions, or by gamblers taking or placing bets on the races …’ (CAT Report 412). However, the Trust has not yet found a ball game associated with the Colchester Roman circus – but we did find the site of the circus!

Read about the Kugelspiel at www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/ASPV6SQEN4XOFAD4T66RT4ZYHG2CKPK2 . Visit the web-site of the Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst at www.smb.museum/museen-und-einrichtungen/skulpturensammlung-und-museum-fuer-byzantinische-kunst/home.html . You can view a gallery of images of the Kugelspiel at https://willyorwonthe.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/a-day-at-the-track-constantinople-832-ad/ .
Thanks to Sarah Bond for the Tweet!

The images show the three counters from the site of the Colchester Roman circus, and the front of the Kugelspiel (museum catalogue number 1895). The photo. of the Kugelspiel was taken by Antje Voigis and the image is the copyright of the Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst in Berlin. It is published online at www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/ASPV6SQEN4XOFAD4T66RT4ZYHG2CKPK2? and it is reproduced here under the terms kindly permitted by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (SMB), ie sharing for non-commercial use, licensed under Creative Commons. [Image to follow.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* The Kugelspiel ramp has six holes: it looks as though six balls would have been dropped onto the top of the ramp and, as they rolled down the ramp, a ball would have fallen out of each hole, with the sixth, remaining ball falling out of the final hole at the bottom.

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