A die looks simple, a cube with pips, but it has a history spanning thousands of years. Long before cubes existed, people were already throwing bones to play games, decide fates, and read the future. This article goes from ancient Mesopotamia through the Roman Empire to the modern dice you hold in your hand today or roll online.
On this page
Antiquity: from knucklebones to the first cubes
The forerunner of the die was not a cube but a small bone. Thousands of years ago, people threw knucklebones: the ankle bones of sheep and goats, also known as astragali. Such a bone has four clearly distinct sides and won't rest on its two rounded ends, which makes it work more or less like a four-sided die.
Those astragali weren't used just for games. They also played a role in casting lots and in divination: by throwing the bones and reading the outcome, people believed they received answers or omens. In antiquity, rolling dice and consulting fate lay close together.
The first true cube-shaped dice are close to 5,000 years old. One of the oldest sets was excavated together with a backgammon-like board game at the "Burnt City" of Shahr-e Sukhteh, in present-day southeastern Iran, dated to roughly 2800–2500 BC. From the Indus Valley come terracotta dice found at Mohenjo-daro, dated 2500–1900 BC. One of those, now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, already has its opposite faces adding up to seven, like a modern die. The famous dice from the city of Ur, in the south of present-day Iraq, are not cubes at all: the Royal Game of Ur came with four-sided, pyramid-shaped (tetrahedral) dice. Early throwing objects varied a lot.
Egypt is not where cube dice began, although many people expect it to be. Senet was being played there well before 3000 BC, but it was moved with flat, two-sided throwsticks rather than dice, with knucklebones thrown alongside them. The cube arrives in Egypt later, and its well-known twenty-sided dice, from the Ptolemaic period, later still. Dice weren't "invented" in one place and spread from there: they appeared more or less independently in different cultures, including India and China. The idea of a throwable object with numbered sides seems to be obvious enough that people came up with it everywhere.
Did you know? Because an astragalus has four usable sides, you can think of it as a natural four-sided die, a distant ancestor of the modern four-sided d4 from role-playing games.
The Roman Empire: dice as a national pastime
In the Roman Empire, dice play was very popular. The Romans called dice and games of chance alea, and money was wagered everywhere: in the street, in taverns, and at home. Officially, gambling had a poor reputation: laws largely banned playing for money, except during certain festivals. In practice hardly anyone paid much attention, and even several emperors were known as avid dice players.
Where there's money to be won, there's cheating too. Archaeologists have recovered Roman loaded dice: dice doctored so they landed on a favorable number more often. So the idea of the "fixed" die is at least as old as dice playing itself.
Roman dice play also gave us a famous saying. When Julius Caesar crossed the river Rubicon with his army in 49 BC, an irreversible step toward civil war, he is said to have declared "alea iacta est": "the die is cast". "Die" here is the old singular of "dice". The expression means that a decision has been made from which there is no way back, just like a roll you can't do over.
Standardization: why everything adds up to 7
Pick up an ordinary modern die and look at the pips: the opposite faces always add up to 7. The 1 sits opposite the 6, the 2 opposite the 5, and the 3 opposite the 4, so each pair makes seven. This is the standard layout of the Western die, in common use since antiquity.
| Top face | Bottom face | Sum |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6 | 7 |
| 2 | 5 | 7 |
| 3 | 4 | 7 |
Why this arrangement? Mostly tradition. Someone settled on this layout (the Mohenjo-daro die in Oxford shows it was already in use long before classical antiquity) and we've done it that way ever since. There is one practical benefit: because high and low faces sit opposite each other, small imperfections in the die's shape cancel each other out on average. That keeps the die fairer, but the advantage was probably only noticed later, long after the "add-up-to-7 rule" was established. The probabilities that follow from a fair die are on the page about dice probability.
The Middle Ages: popular yet controversial
After the fall of the Roman Empire, dice play didn't disappear. In the Middle Ages, dice were rolled everywhere, in the market square and in the tavern. It remained a controversial pastime, though: church and secular authorities regularly tried to rein in gambling, because it led to quarrels, debts, and deceit.
At the same time, dice making became a true craft. There were dice makers who carved the little cubes by hand and applied the pips, often working in bone. Dice from this period weren't always perfectly shaped, and it was sometimes hard to tell an ordinary die from a secretly loaded one. That worry returns again and again through the centuries.
The modern era: casinos and role-playing games
In the modern era, the story splits in two directions. The first leads to the casino. Games like craps use so-called precision dice: dice with sharp edges and very tight tolerances, made of transparent plastic. They are manufactured to within a fraction of a millimeter, so that every face is exactly equally likely. A casino requires fair dice, hence the sharp corners and the strict inspection.
The second direction leads to role-playing games. In the seventies, Dungeons & Dragons broke through, and with it polyhedral dice became common: besides the familiar six-sided cube there are the four-sided d4, the eight-sided d8, the ten-sided d10, the twelve-sided d12, and the twenty-sided d20. Which shapes exist and what you use them for is covered on the page about types of dice.
The newest form is the digital die. What began with a polished sheep bone, you now roll with a single click in your browser. With the free Android app you can throw it onto the television, so the roll is in the middle of the room where everyone can see it. Each face is still as likely as on the oldest cubes from the Indus Valley, and you never have to bend down to pick one up.
Sources
Dice dating is a field of ranges rather than headline numbers, so where a find is reported across a span of centuries, that span is what's quoted above.
- Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford: terracotta dice from Mohenjo-daro. The object record dates the die to 2500–1900 BC and notes that its opposite sides add up to seven, "as in modern dice".
- A. Naser Moghadasi, "The Burnt City and the Evolution of the Concept of 'Probability' in the Human Brain", Iranian Journal of Public Health 44:9 (2015). Describes the board game and dice recovered from tomb 761 at Shahr-e Sukhteh.
- Wikipedia, "Dice". The survey we cross-checked these dates against, and a workable trail into the primary literature for the Burnt City, the bone dice from Skara Brae (3100–2400 BC), the Egyptian throwsticks, and the twenty-sided dice of Ptolemaic Egypt.
Two claims did not survive that check and have been corrected here. Dates for the Shahr-e Sukhteh set are reported anywhere between about 2800 and 2500 BC, so no single year should be quoted for it. And the widely repeated line that cube-shaped dice were in use in Egypt by 3000 BC does not hold up: the Egyptian games of that period were moved with throwsticks and knucklebones, and the cube turns up there considerably later.
Frequently asked questions about the history of dice
How old are dice?
Cube-shaped dice are close to 5,000 years old. The oldest well-dated finds come from southeastern Iran (the "Burnt City" of Shahr-e Sukhteh, around 2800–2500 BC) and from the Indus Valley, where terracotta dice from Mohenjo-daro are dated 2500–1900 BC. The practices that preceded them, above all throwing knucklebones (astragali), are far older still.
What were the first dice made of?
The earliest "dice" weren't cubes but astragali: the ankle bones of sheep and goats. When true cube-shaped dice arrived, they were made of bone, ivory, wood, stone, and later clay. Materials like glass and plastic came along much later.
Why do opposite faces add up to 7?
On a standard Western die, 1 and 6, 2 and 5, and 3 and 4 sit opposite each other, so each pair adds up to 7. This layout has been in common use since antiquity and is mostly tradition. A pleasant side effect is that small manufacturing deviations cancel each other out on average, which keeps the die fairer.
What does "the die is cast" mean?
"The die is cast" is the English translation of the Latin "alea iacta est", attributed to Julius Caesar when he crossed the river Rubicon in 49 BC. "Die" is the singular of "dice"; the expression means an irreversible decision has been made.
Who invented dice?
No one in particular: dice weren't invented in a single place. The oldest known cube-shaped dice come from southeastern Iran and the Indus Valley, from roughly 2800 BC onward, and comparable throwing objects turn up independently in cultures that had no contact with one another.
Did the ancient Egyptians play with dice?
Not with cubes, at first. Senet was being played in Egypt well before 3000 BC, but it was moved with flat, two-sided throwsticks rather than dice, and knucklebones were thrown alongside them. The cube reaches Egypt later, and the twenty-sided dice of Ptolemaic Egypt are later still, from the last few centuries BC.