Monday, July 16, 2007

Manic Monday #24

This Week's Theme: Marbles
*Previous Entries* ~ *MM Headquarters*

The History of Marbles:
Marbles is a game that is more than 3000 years old. Clay marbles have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. Later the Romans were to play marbles. On the other side of the Atlantic archaeologists have found marbles in Mexico and parts of the USA dating back to 100 BC. In 1560 Pieter Brueghel painted children playing marbles. By the 19th Century marbles were being mass produced. Originally marbles were made of many kinds of materials - clay, bone, polished nuts and stones, and indeed marble. Now most marbles are made of glass.

How to Play Marbles:
There are many games using marbles, some are very old. They break down into two types - ones in which you try to knock your opponent's marbles with your own (and so win them) and ones in which you try to hit a target, eg roll your marble through a hoop or into a hole. You do this by rolling, throwing or knuckling your marble.


This picture shows someone knuckling a marble.
The marble is flicked by the thumb out of the hand.



Taw - This is the game which is being played in the photograph above. The aim is to hit your opponent's marbles out of the circle. Sometimes the circle can be as large as 10 feet (3 metres) across.
Cherry pit - In this game you try to roll marbles into holes in the ground. Cherry pit was described by Shakespeare.
Nineholes - In this game of skill you try to fire your marble through numbered arches and so earn points.
source

23 comments, add yours here:

Anonymous said...

What a great post for marbles. I played marbles as a kid--I especially love Chinese checkers. Happy MM.

Empress Bee (of the high sea) said...

sarge loves marbles too. for some reason the grandkids never took to them, and i thought all boys loved them! thanks for the great post honey!

smiles, bee

Unknown said...

I'm not a marble player. I was surprised to learn that they have a World Championship for marbles. Anyhow, my Manic Monday went in a different direction!

peace, Villager

Sarge Charlie said...

yep, we always played marbles at recess, i did ok.. i do poker better.

Cheryl Wray said...

I actually remember playing marbles when I was little. But I especially remember playing jacks at recess. Fun, fun!!
Just popping back in after being gone for a week. Off to read your other posts!!!

Neila said...

Very cool post! I've always loved marbles, but I've never known how exactly you're supposed to play marbles. Whenever I played when I was little, we just made up our own rules. :-)

the Book of Keira said...

I've always wondered how you play that...lol.

Gattina said...

Very interesting your marble story ! As a kid I used to play a lot and had bags and bags full of marbles.

Anonymous said...

i remember i played marbles too with the boys in our neighborhood.
nice info thanks for sharing. happy monday!

Amazing Gracie said...

Must be my age! I'm with Gattina on this one. We played at school during recess and your shooter was real important! I used to love to beat the boys! I still have a big jar of marbles that I managed to keep! I've got cats' eyes, aggies, puries - all colors and sizes! Love it so much more than jacks - that was for g-i-r-l-s!

Anonymous said...

Me too Gracie!

We had 'marble season' at our school as a kid - out of the blue one day it would be marble season, and then all of a sudden... it would be over!

I remember it being such an exciting time!

Unknown said...

Excellent entry! My grandpa gave me a bag of marbles when I was a little one... I was too afraid to play with them after my daddy told me grandpa did play with these when he was a little one. I didn´t want to loose a single marble. So I bought some new and won LOTS. They are waiting patiently (as well as my grandpa´s) - for Luis =)

Nancy Lindquist-Liedel said...

I'd forgotten the rules. Thank you for posting them.

Ian said...

Suddenly I feel like I'm hanging around with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.

Ian

Anonymous said...

I lost my marbles

Knock knock - it's cancer! said...

Very informative, thanks. LOL.

Maggie Moo said...

LOVE your new template....very pretty!

Happy MM...

Sandee said...

Great job. I had bags and bags of marbles when I was a kid. Just loved them. I wonder what happened to them. I think I traded them in for boys... Have a great MM. :)

Mo and The Purries said...

I always loved collecting them more than playing with them. Something about the round glass captured like that just made me smile.
When I was little, I had a game that used marbles, they spiraled down and I couldn't get enough of it.
Great post!

Not So Anonymous Michelle said...

I LOVE the new template!! I've always thought marbles were neat, not to play with but just to look through a jar of different ones. We probably have some somewhere in my mom's attic still!

Lisa Ryan said...

this SO makes me want to play marbles now! happy mm!

Anonymous said...

Great choice for todays theme. Brings back fun memories from my childhood.

Have a great day.

Travis Cody said...

I loved to play marbles when I was a boy. I had a pretty good size collection too.