They were looking for a lose monastery , where the serious piece of work of spiritual writing went on in the Middle Ages . What they found or else were the remnant of a bit of Thelonious Monk - style playfulness .
Archaeologists digging 30 naut mi ( 48 km ) north of Aberdeenshire , Scotland , unveil a I. F. Stone gaming boardthat 7th- or eighth - century Thelonious Sphere Monk may have used in their down time to playHnefatafl . In this Norse game , also known as King ’s Table , pieces stage a king and his men face off against pieces represent two twelve aggressor .
Squares incised on the disc - shaped board would have held the fight down men , while the king would have been stationed on a primal throne area . The game was gain when the king was captured or when he successfully made it to sanctuary in one of the four corners of the board .
voice a little likechess ? You count .
Archaeologist Ali Cameronsaid the game board was a uncommon object , one of the few early game boards to be uncovered in Scotland . The others were also associated with spiritual internet site . Did the Monk sit around and bet on the outcome ? We do n’t do it . But when these monks were n’t gaming they were belike carrying out their duties at the Monastery of Deer .
archeologist have long searched for the Monastery of Deer because monks there in the 10th hundred created an illuminated manuscript , theBook of Deer . Other than the book , there is no trace bequeath of the monastery ’s beingness . On the book ’s sheets of lambskin , the monks penned the four gospel of the Bible , the Apostles ' Creed and a sacrament know as the anointing of the ghastly , grant to Smithsonian cartridge clip . The 6- by 4 - inch ( 15- by 10 - centimeter ) manuscript was written in Old Irish and Vulgate Latin . And 300 years after , other monks writing in Scottish Gaelic scribbled notes in the margins about earth Grant made to the monastery . The ms , now housed at the Cambridge University Library , is theearliest know text written in Gaelic , preceding other Gaelic document by three one C .
ground on carbon geological dating , the secret plan board was several centuries older than the Book of Deer .
