Lost Games · Field Reconstruction 01

Pente Grammai

Five lines. Ten counters. One sacred line—and no surviving rulebook.

Play a transparent reconstruction of the game associated in ancient imagery with heroes including Achilles and Ajax. The playable edition is Sacred Departure V0.3, with new counters placed according to the throw.

Play the experiment Examine the evidence

Free to playNo account requiredSacred Departure V0.3Playable experiment

Modern visual reconstruction — not an artefact image

Reconstruction Lab

Three engines, tested to destruction

Each candidate rule set was encoded and run through a thousand seeded matches to see whether it produces a game at all — a falsification pass, not a claim of authenticity. Every rule below is a modern hypothesis, versioned and open to revision; none is presented as the recovered ancient rules. Here is how each engine plays, and what the testing did to it.

PG1

Sacred-Line Race

Current public hypothesis

How it plays

1 · SetupTwo players, five counters each. The central sacred line carries five protected finishing positions.
2 · Cast & choosePlayers strictly alternate: one throw of a single die per turn, moving one counter of your choice.Tested: nearly four meaningful options per throw.
3 · CirculateA counter’s first throw brings it onto the circuit; after that it advances by the count through the four outer lines — twenty positions in all.
protected
4 · ArriveA throw that carries a counter past the end of the circuit brings it home to a free protected position. Nothing can disturb it.
5 · WinThe first player to bring all five counters home to the sacred line wins.Tested: every one of 1,000 seeded matches ended — mean 67 turns.
The reconstruction at the top of this page plays exactly this hypothesis.
Read the full test recordFull test record
What survived testing
Short, legible matches that terminate reliably. Playable end to end.
What failed
Nothing encourages leaving the sacred line, and there is no interaction between players — it fits the collection objective but not the proverb evidence.
Playable
Yes — advanced as the control version.

1,000 seeded games · 100% completion · mean 67 turns

PG2

Knock-Off Lines

Rejected as encoded

How it plays

1 · The same raceCircuit, alternating throws, entry and victory all work exactly as in the Sacred-Line Race — but now both sides share the track dangerously.
off the board, by exact count
2 · The knock-offLanding by exact count on an enemy counter knocks it off the board. Counters home on sacred positions are safe.
∞
3 · The reset trapKnocked counters must re-enter at the shared start — where they knock each other straight back. The race never begins.
∞

 

Read the full test recordFull test record
What survived testing
The knock-off idea itself remains the most important second hypothesis.
What failed
A shared exposed entry point plus unrestricted landing capture produced a forced reset lock — a board-topology problem, not a tuning problem. Capture accounted for 99.75% of recorded actions because entry at the shared start made it compulsory from the opening exchange.
Playable
Not in this form. The topology must be repaired first.

1,000 seeded games · 0% completion — every match hit the turn cap

PG3

Leave the Sacred Line

Held for retest

How it plays

1 · The race staysEverything from the Sacred-Line Race still holds: victory requires all five counters gathered home.
back to the very start
2 · Leaving costsA counter safely home may leave the sacred line — but it re-enters the circuit from its very start.
the strike
3 · Why leave? To strikeOnly a counter that has stepped off can knock an exposed enemy away — the ancient proverb made mechanical.

 

Read the full test recordFull test record
What survived testing
The thematic hypothesis remains strong; it is the question this whole experiment exists to answer.
What failed
It collapsed into the same entry-capture loop as PG2, so it has not yet been tested fairly.
Playable
Not yet — queued for retest once the PG2 topology is repaired.

1,000 seeded games · 0% completion — inherits the PG2 trap

Evidence

Where archaeology ends

Known — supported by evidence

  • The name is associated with five lines.
  • A central or sacred line held strategic importance.
  • Counters and casting are associated with the game tradition in the evidence.
  • No unambiguous complete ancient rules survive.

Inferred — argued in scholarship

  • Two opposing players controlled piece sets.
  • The sacred line changed the strategic status of a counter.
  • Isolated opposing pieces may have been knocked away.

Modern hypothesis — invented to complete a game

  • The exact setup.
  • The exact path and movement entitlement.
  • The current safety rule.
  • The current capture rule.
  • Scoring and victory.

Every invented rule is versioned and open to revision as play data arrives.

We do not claim to have recovered the ancient rules. Public play tests whether this equipment and evidence boundary can sustain a coherent living game. Popularity or elegance cannot prove that a rule is ancient.

Sources

Read the scholarship

  • Ulrich Schädler — “Pente Grammai — the Ancient Greek Board Game Five Lines” Research publication · accessed 14 July 2026 Supports: the five-line identification, the equipment tradition, and the position that a precise lost rule cannot be recovered.
  • Stephen Kidd — “Pente Grammai and the ‘Holy Line’” Board Game Studies Journal · accessed 14 July 2026 Supports: the strategic importance of the sacred line and the argued knocking-away of isolated pieces.
  • Locus Ludi — “Reconstructing a lost game” Open-access reconstruction discussion · accessed 14 July 2026 Supports: the modern naming, five pieces per player, and the methodological limits of reconstruction.

Findings

What public play has shown

The playable experiment is open. Aggregate findings will appear here only with the rules version, sample size, limitations and change rationale; play volume cannot prove that a rule is ancient.

Field Edition

A physical edition, if you want one

Concept · not yet on sale

We are testing interest in a physical Field Edition before anything is produced. The concept:

  • Folding five-line board
  • Ten counters
  • One die
  • Evidence and rules booklet
  • Printed version record
If this existed, what would feel fair?

The interest test opens with the experiment — responses are anonymous, nothing is a preorder, and no payment is taken.