the ancient wisdom of the cards.
One of the precursors to modern European playing cards was Korean Fighting Arrow cards. Based on the concept of gaming arrows, they are long and narrow, and feature numeral and suit marks like western cards.
It is not known whether these may have been the ancestors of Chinese Money Cards or Persian Ganjifeh, but they are clearly related.
08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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660-670, China: First example of printing on paper. Early xylography was accomplished with hemp paper and woodblocks.
Frontispiece, Diamond Sutra from Cave 17, Dunhuang, ink on paper British Library Or.8210/ P.2
08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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Astralgi (Sheeps’ Knuckle Bones, used as dice)Cubical dice, descended from Astralgi or sheeps' knuckle bones, made their way from Sumeria throughout the world. They had arrived in India by the 600s, and China by the 700s.
08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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The game was often referred to as "gold speckled leaves", which does make it sound quite a lot like early gold-leaf Tarot cards. Many scholars will tell you that playing cards were invented in 827 because they have conflated these two games. If there is any relationship between these games, which I doubt, it is this:
08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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On the twenty-third day of the sixth month in the thirty-first year of the zhiyuan period (17 July 1294), we caught Yan Sengzhu and Zheng Zhugou playing cards, and have also found wood blocks to print cards. Each person has admitted to the truth of the accusation. We have, according to the rules, passed judgement and punished correctly the organizer Lu Donger, accessory to gambling Zheng Zhugou, the owner of the premises Jiang Sier, and the block printer Ye Lin, and dispatched to the Ever-abundant Treasury for deposit the nine cards (zhipai) that were about to be destroyed, and...
