“Ducky”1 is a former television repairman. He’s married with kids but his ex-girlfriend still has a thing for him, which is going to spell trouble for Ducky. These days people hav…

There are some good archaeology-themed boardgames out there. None depict archaeology as an activity directed towards the gaining of knowledge. Let’s look at the top three on Boardgame Geek. * _Tikal_ has a pretty absurd premise. A number of archaeological expeditions reach an area of jungle-covered ruins in the Yucatan peninsula at the same time and realise to their surprise that they all have permits to dig in the same region. The expedition leaders react to this coincidence by ordering an all-out plunderfest where everybody tries to get as much fine loot as possible, employing the locals as manual labour. * _Thebes_ really makes fun of my whole profession. Sure, you play the role of an early 1900s archaeologist who does research in libraries and goes to the areas of ancient civilisations to do fieldwork. But the goal of the game isn’t to find out about it past: it’s simply to become as famous as possible. When you dig, half of what you find is termed “useless junk” and you don’t even bring it home from the site. You just look for “treasure” that you can exhibit in European capitals. And one strategy that works is to simply go to as many conferences as possible and make sure everybody knows about you — even though you never dig. * _Lost Cities_ is a fine two-player card game decorated with a thin veneer of archaeological practice. You mount archaeological expeditions to up to five forgotten civilisations, one of whose imagery is heavily influenced by 1st millennium Scandinavia, and try to secure funding from fickle donors who will reward you lavishly if you find anything good but also punish you if you fail. Quite what the victory points you amass here represent isn’t spelled out. I recently bought a new archaeology boardgame simply on the strength of the theme and its decent BGG rank. A 2011 release from Eggertspiele in Germany, _Pergamon_ received its first review on BGG in February of last year. It was designed by Stefan Dorra (none of whose many other games I have played) and Ralf zur Linde (whose 2009 co-designed game _Finca_ I like). In _Pergamon_ , the players are German archaeologists in 1878 who compete over excavations at the site of the same name in modern-day Turkey. Here you are only partly competing for fame or fine finds as in the above-mentioned games. Each victory point instead represents an unspecified number of visitors to the Pergamon museum in Berlin. The visitors only want to see well-preserved objects, they prefer older finds over newer ones, and they soon lose interest in stuff that’s been around the museum for a few months. So during each of the game’s twelve monthly rounds, you compete for funding, dig for stuff, reassemble broken objects, and exhibit them in the museum. The dig itself is shown as a kind of mining operation, where the various crews apparently burrow horizontally into the side of a tell. The game seats two, three or four, is playable to a smart 7-y-o, and takes about an hour depending on how experienced everybody is. The pieces are nice chunky cardboard with a pleasing design, as is the board. There is little down time unless someone gets Analysis Paralysis. There is ample opportunity for strategic planning and decision making. You can get _Pergamon_ for €19 or $32 + p&p depending on where you are. All in all, a pretty short but still meaty game with an easily understood theme, playable to Muggles but also enjoyable for the game geek. An excellent gift to the archaeologist in your life, who will appreciate the ironic museological slant to it all: whoever gets the most punters to his display cases wins. ### Dela det här: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_ ## Author: Martin R Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, skeptic, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, boardgamer, geocacher and father of two. View all posts by Martin R

Dear Historians.Social community, Thank you for being a part of our community. Over the past three years, we’ve worked to build a place on social media where those interested in discussing the past can gather together in an environment free of corporate control and censorship. We are proud of what we have built and the community that our Mastodon server now supports. Unfortunately, that support requires money, and now our financial situation requires us to wind down the operation of the server at the end of October 2025. As you know, we operate entirely on donations, and quite simply they have never matched our expenses. We have received crucial support from Digital Scholar to maintain operations, and have each donated ourselves, but the math is unsustainable. We wanted to give you ample notice, though, so Historians.Social will not shut down until October 31. We are certain this is a disappointment to many of you, as it is to us. We remain committed to the mission of Clio Digital Media to produce and support what Karin calls “protein-rich” history. Though we will be shutting off automatic donations for historians.social in October, CDM will continue with our other projects, including _Ben Franklin’s World_ and the History Explorers Club, and would of course appreciate your support for those projects in the future; you can fund us there at https://www.cliodigital.media/ With best wishes, Joe, Liz, and Karin