Mancala (Arabic: منقلة manqalah) refers to a family of two-player turn-based strategy board games played with small stones, beans, or seeds and rows of holes or pits in the earth, a board or other playing surface. The objective is usually to capture all or some set of the opponent's pieces.
Versions of the game date back past the 3rd century and evidence suggests the game existed in Ancient Egypt. It is among the oldest known games to still be widely played today.
History
According to the Savannah African Art Museum, "archeological and historical evidence dates Mancala to the year 700 AD in East Africa. Ancient Mancala boards were found in Aksumite settlements in Matara, Eritrea, and Yeha, Ethiopia. However, the oldest Mancala boards were found in An Ghazal, Jordan in the floor of a Neolithic dwelling" as early as ~5,870 BC. Evidence of the game was also uncovered in Israel in the city of Gedera in an excavated Roman...
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