One of these games can be seen at the beginning of the colonnade. During the 7th and 6th centuries B.C., this territory was under the occupation of the Lydians who were the decendants of the Hittites. These Lydians were to be known very skillful merchants, they were the ones who minted the first coins of the world, and, they were known to be a 'gambling nation' because they invented and were playing lots of games that some of those games are still played in Turkey today. One of these games is at the beginning of this colonnade. A rectangular table with 3 letters of Xs wich formes the center of the board; on the sides of the Xs are the circles where they moved the stones around, and, it was and it is played with a pair dice. Today, this game is called 'BACKGAMMON' which is very popular in Turkey. Only difference from today's Backgammon is instead of the circles or the squares in the mid-line, we have triangular shapes coming from the sides towards the mid-line.
The pictures below: The on the left is thought to have dated to the first or the second century B.C. and the one on the right dates to the second century A.D.
 

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: 21 Sep 2006/14:40 GMT