It’s been an unashamedly nerdy ambition of mine for quite a long time to make a Bronze Age version of Monopoly, themed around the Mycenaean palaces of Bronze Age Greece – so now that I’m PhD-less, I thought I’d finally give it a go. Allow me to present: Mycenopoly – or, in Linear B, mu-ke-no-po-ru:
I should state right away that this game makes no pretence to exact historical or archaeological accuracy (which are not particularly compatible with the rules of Monopoly). The aim of Mycenopoly is to gain control of different sites in order to extract contributions of goods from visiting players, the winner being the person with the largest quantity of goods at the end of the game. Two or three sites of the same colour make up a territory or kingdom – so, for instance, the green group consists of the palace of Pylos and two settlements within its territory, Nichoria and Iklaina, while the orange group represents the Argolid (Mycenae, Midea, and Tiryns). Controlling a whole ‘kingdom’ allows a player to start constructing palaces – first of all by building four pillars, then a megaron (the most important room of a Mycenaean palace, characterised by four pillars around a central hearth, as well as the throne). You can also gain control of four ports and two important Mycenaean industries – perfumed oil and textiles production. Here’s the game board with all the associated cards, pieces, etc:
Since Bronze Age Greece didn’t have money, I had to devise a barter/exchange system: the value of any site is expressed in terms of the amount of olive oil required in exchange. It’s a bit of a pain transporting all those jars of olive oil around, though, so other commodities are deemed to be equivalent to certain quantities of oil – e.g. a sheep is equivalent to 5 units of oil, a horse 10, or a suit of armour 100. All quantities of goods, by the way, are expressed in Linear B, using an ideogram (a symbol standing for an object) plus a numeral – fortunately, Linear B has a nice decimal system of numbers (vertical line = 1, horizontal line = 1, circle = 100…), and the game comes with a handy guide to exchanging goods:
Drawing cards from the ‘Fate’ pile (tukha in Mycenaean Greek, spelt tu-ka in Linear B) may mean that you have to offer up some of your goods to placate an angry god/goddess, or that you receive a gift due to being appointed as a priest(ess); drawing an ‘Archives Complex’ card (named after the location in the palace of Pylos where most of the Linear B tablets were stored) might mean receiving a gift from the wanax (the king, i.e. the most important person in a Mycenaean palace – in Mycenopoly, therefore, the ‘Bank’), or a requirement to contribute troops for coastal defence (most of these cards are – at least loosely – based on real Linear B tablets). Oh, and on your way around the board, be careful not to get lost in the Labyrinth!
UPDATE: there’s been an unexpectedly large amount of interest in acquiring copies of Mycenopoly. As I said in the comments below, I am happy to make copies available free of charge to those wishing to use them specifically for teaching purposes (since this falls under ‘fair use’ in copyright terms).
If you are a teacher/lecturer/other form of educator and want a copy to use in teaching, please send me an email, including some details of where/what/who you will be using it to teach (my address, in non-spammer-friendly format, is “apj31”, then the “at” symbol, then “cam.ac.uk”).
If you have a friend/colleague/family member who you think would like to use this in teaching, please send them this post and ask them to get in touch with me if they would like one, rather than emailing on their behalf – I prefer to send copies directly to the people who will be using them!
If you are a non-teacher who would just like a copy to play/to give to a friend/etc, I appreciate your interest, but I will unfortunately not be able to send you a copy. Sorry to disappoint, but please understand that I can’t simply distribute the game to absolutely everybody.
Finally, thank you all for your interest, it’s amazing to see so many people appreciating what really just started as a personal nerdy project!
Where can one buy this? My colleagues and students are very interested.
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Sadly at the moment there is only the one copy in existence…If there’s a lot of interest I could look into making the files available to download for educational purposes!
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me too!
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I’m not a Greek scholar, but I feel like nit-picking the ending of mu-ke-no-po-ru. Wiktionary, at least, gives the etymology of _monopoly_ as: From Latin monopōlium, from Ancient Greek μονοπώλιον (monopṓlion, “a right of exclusive sale”), from μόνος (mónos, “sole”) + πωλέω (pōléō, “I barter, sell”). Therefore I would expect something like mu-ke-no-po-ri-jo. (Of course, it’s a portmanteau anyway, so this may be unimportant for naming purposes.)
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Well done! It is an amazing adaptation and it also looks great and professional! Of course (bit of nagging) I am no a huge fan of using christian nameplaces as I think it takes something away but it’s not easy to find alternatives every time. It would be great if it could hit the shelves at some point in the future but I know it’s very difficult! Congratulations again!
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Thank you! I agree it would be great to be able to use only Bronze Age names, but the evidence just isn’t there unfortunately – I decided I’d rather use the names attested archaeological sites are known by than names of places we know from the Linear B tablets but whose location we don’t know. One of many anachronisms, not the least of which is the “money” system!
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oh my goodness, how cool! NEED TO BUY THIS FOR MY CLASS
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As I said above, if there’s a lot of interest from teachers I may be able to make files available to download!
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Hi, I’m hugely interested in history and would love a downloadable version whenever possible 🙂
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Oh my god, I absolutely need it! That’s awesome! Hahaha!
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I love it!
If you make those files available to download, it would be wonderful!
🙂
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Thanks Adriana! I will have to look into whether that would still count as fair use under copyright law…
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This is absolutely brilliant! I just wanted to add my voice to the chorus of people pleading for a downloadable version
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I would love this and so would my college students!!
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I am very interested as well!
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Anna, I want one too! (of course)
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Please!!!! create those files. This is absolutely brilliant
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Count me as interested 🙂
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I would definitely be interested in the files too—I think my kids would be _so_ excited by this!
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This is just genius. Given the other niche versions of Monopoly that have been produced this so should be a real version.
Brilliant stuff, well done.
If only Hasbro would produce this (and a Sumerian version 🙂 )
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MUST HAVE
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Absolutely amazing ^___^ You really have to publish this as a downloadable version!
If you’re afraid of copyright problems still after some research of those, maybe you can do something like change the name of the game/make the board of different shape so it’s not so obvious copy of any existing game. Anyway, even if the company should find out of this, I don’t understand why they’d be angry, it’s after all almost like an advertisement to them. (I’m nothing like an expert here, just babbling!)
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A downloadable version would be marvellous for my students as well – this looks an excellent example of gamification for education!
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Now, let’s talk tokens. I want to be the Minotaur.
There can be Daedalus. Icarus, etc…
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The tokens I have made so far are the snake goddess (pictured in the post), the Knossos throne, a Linear B tablet (my choice of playing piece, of course), a boar’s tusk helmet, horns of consecration, and a psi figurine. No reason why there couldn’t be a mythological set as well, though!
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UCL Summer School in Homer and sone other classicists I know are extremely interested in buying this! More copies please! And well done Anna!
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Outstanding! One might even learn a bit of Linear B in the process! But it’s a script not without its pitfalls. See, for example: http://www.uta.edu/honors/faculty/petruso/Nestor.html
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Please, Please, Please, Please, Please make this available for sale/download. My inner historian and Monopoly geek is jumping up and down!
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Hi all, so I don’t really want to get involved in the complications that would arise from selling this (I’m not even sure how legal that would be) – but it seems there’s a lot of interest in using Mycenopoly for educational purposes which as far I can see comes under “fair use/fair dealing”. I’m therefore happy to make copies available for those purposes, although rather than posting files publically for download, I’d ask any teachers/lecturers/etc who’d like a copy to email me (address below) so that I can send you the files to print out. It would be good to know a bit about where/what/who you will be using it to teach, as well! I won’t be able to provide copies straightaway as I will need to do some file conversions, scan in some stuff I made by hand, etc – also as this wasn’t really designed for teaching I may add some extra explanatory information! But I would hope to be able to send it out relatively soon. Thank you all for your interest, it’s amazing to see so many people appreciating what was really just a personal nerdy project!
My email address is “apj31”, then the “at” symbol, then “cam.ac.uk” (trying to give it in non-spammer-friendly format!)
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This is wonderful. I want one. And I want one in Sumerian too, like another commenter suggested. The Monopoly set that I own is the Alan Turing set, which amazingly is an official one.
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Amazing, I didn’t know you could buy copies of the Turing version! I would also love a Sumerian version too but I think I’ll have to leave that for a Near Easternist to create…
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I would be seriously interested in donate for a crowd funding project that aims to make it real. It’s seriously awesome!
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You might be pleased to know that my post on Facebook about this reached almost 30,000 people. It looks great!
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Wow! That explains quite a lot of how this got so many views so fast…
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Reblogged this on Cambridge Latin Tutor and commented:
I haven’t blogged on anything particularly teaching related recently, but this post is too good not pass on – a Bronze Age version of Monopoly!
Should you be so keen as to get your hands on one, dear reader, then read on to the end of the post.
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What do the greek christian saints have to do with Mycenae? Ayios Stefanos? Really?
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As I said above in reply to another comment, we don’t always know what sites were called in the Bronze Age. Only 8 of the place-names on the board are actually found in the tablets (ones like Knossos, Phaistos, Kydonia, Thebes – but Mycenae itself isn’t), so we have to refer to them by the modern names for their locations – that includes ones named after Christian saints, as a huge number of towns/villages/etc in Greece are, as well as plenty of others like Iklaina.
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Please let me know if this ever becomes available! I’ve been to at least half of these places!
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I need this in my life! I’m bagsie-ing the Snake Goddess … I’d also, as an ex-LBA Aegean person, love a copy of this, though I no longer have students. I have children to teach Linear B to, though – that surely counts as educational use?
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I imagine that parker brothers have streamlined the licensing process, because there are a ton of licensed spin offs such as Virginia Wine-opoly . Probably the licensed versions sell more than the original.
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This completely amazing! I studied archaeology and my specialty was Bronze Age Greece. I also would gladly donate to a funding drive, and would love a set.
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As a teacher of A-level Classics this would be a fabulous tool for the classroom – yes please to shared files!
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Hi Duncan, please see above for details on emailing me about this!
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I absolutely love this. Sorry to hear you are not going to be marketing it but totally understand. Just know if you ever do I will surely purchase one. Brilliant just brilliant.
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Anna, your game is just brilliant! I hope a marketable version comes available soon.
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Nerdy lovers of Bronze Age Greece unite! You have nothing to lose but your boar’s tusk helmets! A great idea, goodluck with marketing – I have shown your post to several Facebook chums and it is clear that many people, including myself, would be interested in buying Mycenopoly!
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This is really wonderful. I wonder if you might be overestimating the problems in producing this for sale. Certainly I’ve seen lots of Monopoly-inspired boardgames sold in legitimate places (I’m thinking, for instance, of Penn-opoly) sold in my university bookstore, and there are companies that you can hire to make a prototype. The support you’ve gotten on this site and on Facebook could convince a company that there’s a market for this product, even if it’s a “niche market.” Anyway, just something to consider.
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Reblogged this on A linguist to be.
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I hope that you will let us know when (or if) you decide to make the game COMMERCIALLY available; as a present to my archaeology-buff friends, it should make quite a splash!
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No plans at the moment to make it commercially available I’m afraid but thanks for the interest!
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I just saw what you made ( I know it is ages ago but doesn’t matter I assume). In fact, antiquity-based board games are currently a trend, and for some reason they always were. When I was a kid, I used to play a version of snake and ladders based on Jason and the Argonauts which belonged to my mother (produced in the 60s), and now my own daughter owns a Greek Monuments Monopoly which is part of the official Monopoly series. Would you consider producing your Mycenopoly? Writing to prompt you to do so …and if so, to please let me know! I would love to get my copy!
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No plans right now to produce Mycenopoly I’m afraid! But both of those games sound like ones I need to look out for to add to my own collection…
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Hi there! I am a colleague and friend of Dr Tsaknaki and am teaching Mycenaean Greece at GCSE. Could i possibly have a copy of this please? My email is cm@brentwood.essex.sch.uk
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Of course – I’ll send you an email!
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