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Description (Modern):
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Merlin: 'Circular stone counter or gaming-piece with seven spots of inlaid shell.'
UE 2 p. 534: 'Gaming-pieces. Six squares of shell,
0-017 m. sq., 4 plain, 1 engraved (Pl. 221);
9 roundels of black shale, d. 0.021 m., 1 plain, the
rest inlaid each with 7 white dots, 6 round the U. edge and 1 in the centre (Pl. 221); a bone rod, square in section, with engraved lines, l. 0.06 m.
v. U. 8454. PG/261.'
UE 2 p. p. 149: 'Lying under and round a pair of copper razors (U. 8508, cf. Pl. 23I) were fifteen counters, U. 8509, nine of them circular, made of black shale and inlaid with seven white dots (except for one of them, which was plain) and six square and made of shell, one engraved with a cross; they were arranged alternately in a half-circle, with the odd black pieces at the ends, and'at each end of the curve was a slender bone rod engraved with linear patterns; beneath the counters were the remains of wood. There can be little doubt that there was here a gaming-board of normal type but entirely of wood, the squares and marks being merely engraved (cf. Shub-ad's board, Pl. 95, which is only lightly inlaid), and as usual the board was in the form of a box in which the counters were kept. The arrangement of the pieces would imply that in the bottom of the box there were depressions into which the counters fitted; actually some of them were found face downwards, a sign of carelessness, so that the apparently elaborate arrangement must have been imposed by the nature of the box made to receive them.'
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