Mancala
Ancient family of strategy board games played worldwide.
Mancala is a family of two-player turn-based strategy board games played with small stones, beans, marbles, 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 such games existed in Ancient Egypt, making it among the oldest known families of games still widely played today.
- field
- Board games
- known_for
- Ancient two-player strategy game family
- earliest_undisputed_artifacts
- 2nd–3rd century AD, Gedera, Roman bathhouse
- earliest_written_mention
- 10th century, Kitab al-Aghani by Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani
Lore & Background
More recent and undisputed claims concern artifacts from the city of Gedera in an excavated Roman bathhouse, where pottery boards and rock cuts were unearthed dating back to between the 2nd and 3rd century AD. Among other early evidence are fragments of a pottery board and several rock cuts found in Aksumite areas in Matara (Eritrea) and Yeha (Ethiopia), dated to between the 6th and 7th centuries AD. The oldest mention of the game is in the 'Kitab al-Aghani' ('Book of Songs') of the 10th century, attributed to Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani. The game may have been mentioned by Giyorgis of Segla in his 14th century Geʽez text 'Mysteries of Heaven and Earth', where he refers to a game called qarqis. Evidence of the game has also been uncovered in Kenya.
Reader's Guide
Mancala games have existed in Eastern Europe, including Estonia (Bohnenspiel), Bosnia (Ban-Ban, still played today), Serbia, and Greece (Mandoli, Cyclades). Two mancala tables from the early 18th century are found in Weikersheim Castle in southern Germany. In western Europe, it never caught on but was documented by Oxford University orientalist Thomas Hyde. In the United States, a traditional mancala game called Warra was still played in Louisiana in the early 20th century, and a commercial version called Kalah became popular in the 1940s. In Cape Verde, mancala is known as 'ouril' and was brought to the United States by Cape Verdean immigrants; it is played to this day in Cape Verdean communities in New England. Historians may have found evidence of mancala in slave communities of the Americas, brought by enslaved Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The game was played by enslaved Africans to foster community and develop social skills. Archeologists may have found evidence of mancala played in Nashville, Tennessee at the Hermitage Plantation. Recent studies of mancala rules have given insight into its distribution, linked to migration routes possibly going back several hundred years.
Did You Know?
- The word 'mancala' is a tool noun derived from the Arabic root naqala, meaning 'to move'.
- The most minimalistic variants are Nano-Wari (eight seeds in two pits) and Micro-Wari (four seeds in four pits), created by Bulgarian ethnologue Assia Popova.
- In the United States, a traditional mancala game called Warra was still played in Louisiana in the early 20th century.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Mancala?
Mancala is a broad family of two-player, turn-based strategy board games in which players distribute small objects like seeds or beads across a series of pits or holes. The general goal is to collect more pieces than your opponent by the end of play. It is played across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and beyond in countless regional variants.
What is the objective in a game of Mancala?
The core goal is to capture or collect more of the opponent's pieces than they collect of yours before the board runs out of play. Players take turns sowing their seeds across the pits, and the specific scoring and capture rules shift from one regional version to another.
Is Mancala one single game with one set of rules?
No—Mancala is an entire family of related games rather than a single fixed ruleset. There are hundreds of regional variants, each with its own pit counts, sowing directions, and capture conditions. Despite those differences, they all share the core mechanic of distributing pieces around a track of holes.
More in Games And Recreation 1-24
Elsewhere in the Games And Recreation universe
Spotted an error? Know more?
This is a living reference — every entry is fact-audited, and reader corrections feed straight into our audit queue. Suggest an edit · See this site's audit record