Top: a board-game slice made from whalebone at the halt of the sixth century CE, establish inward Gnistahögen close Uppsala, Sweden (photograph yesteryear Bengt Backlund, Uppland County Museum). Bottom: the os construction of the gaming slice compared alongside reference os from minke whale (photograph yesteryear Rudolf Gustavsson, Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis, SAU) [Credit: Bengt Backlund/Rudolf Gustavsson]
Museum collections inward Sweden comprise thousands of Iron Age board-game pieces. New studies of the raw cloth composing them exhibit that nearly were made of whalebone from the mid-6th century CE. They were produced inward large volumes together with standardised forms. The researchers thus believe that a regular provide of whalebone was needed. Since the producers would hardly convey establish the carcasses of beached whales a reliable source, the gaming pieces are interpreted every minute prove for whaling.
Apart from an osteological survey, species beginning has been determined for a pocket-sized publish of game pieces, using ZooMS (short for Zooarchaeology yesteryear Mass Spectrometer). The method shows that all the pieces analysed were derived from the North Atlantic correct whale (Eubalaena glacialis), a massive whale weighing 50-80 tonnes. It got the cite because it was the correct whale to hunt: it swam slowly, around shore, together with contained then much blubber every minute to float later on existence killed.
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