original chess set

This attractive tic-tac-toe game is presented by India's Arti Sharma in a minimalist style. Hand carved from mango wood, the game board has nine grooves for the game pieces to sit in. The set comes with five teal and five beige glass marbles, which are stored in a black velvet pouch. The name Terni Lapilli comes from the original Roman name of this classic game.

The Sierra Family craft an original tic-tac-toe set from fine marble, as pink veins and white squares contrast with sleek black. The whole family will spend hours aligning the nine playing pieces.

As each piece is sculpted individually dimensions may vary slightly.

One of the oldest games in history is dominoes, which originated in China around the 1300s with a similar format to playing cards. The popular tile game inspired Costa Rica's Chaverri Brothers to create an exceptional domino set hand-carved from teak wood with a storage box and 28 pieces for endless hours of fun.

Played like bingo, the popular Loteria game from Mexico merges artistry and luck into an exciting game.

Originally titled La Lotería Tequilera in Spanish—by Marina Pallares—this fun set includes 36 cards and eight boards, each with a unique combination of images that coincide with the ones printed on each card.

The dealer picks one of the 36 cards—featuring Marina's exquisite art style—and recites its name while showing the picture, allowing the players to see if the image matches one of the figures featured in their boards. The winner is the first person to complete the card.

Nine adinkra symbols that convey West Africa's collective wisdom adorn the lid of this intriguing game of oware. It opens to reveal the playing field of twelve depressions. Oware is a game of skill and strategy designed for two players, challenging mental agility and alertness. The objective can be briefly described as "counting and capturing beads" and there are no chance factors involved. A player's strategy entirely depends upon reasoning and counting abilities. Because of this, aware has been used successfully throughout Africa for teaching children basic numbers and arithmetic.

Oware is one of the oldest games in the world. The earliest records describing the game were found in Arab religious texts dating to the Middle Ages, suggesting the game originated in the Middle East and spread from there to Africa, then to Asia with Arab traders, and to the Caribbean around 1640 via the African slave trade. Other experts place its origins in Central Africa; the Masai people state that oware was invented by Sindillo, the son of the first man, Maitoumbe, and was originally called geshe.

In Arab countries, the most common name for this game is mancala, an Arabic word meaning "to move." In some West African countries the depressions in the board are referred to as warri or wwari, which means "houses," thus the name owari. In Nigeria it is known as adi, which is also the name of the seeds used to play it; and in South Africa it is called ohoro. With different and exotic names such as congklak, dakon, aggalacang, and nogarata, it has also been played in Asia long before the Portuguese rounded the southern tip of Africa.

Today, oware represents the diversity of Africa, as some version of it is played in nearly every country on the continent. Legend relates that Shyaam aMbul aNgoong, founder of the Kuba kingdom of Central Africa, taught the game to his people to encourage foresight and calculation.

The set includes 42 beads and a detailed playing manual.

Wearing yellow caps, a man and a woman swear to love and honor each other in this pair of masks by Abdulai Osman Adam. He carves each sese wood mask by hand, giving long braids to the woman and a beard to the man. They both are adorned with a giraffe on their forehead. In his original design, Adam adorns the groom's chest with a pair of doves as a symbol of love and fidelity. In Ghana, a pair of doves is often released by a newly wedded couple as a sign of their commitment, love and fidelity to each other. "A giraffe symbolizes having great aspirations, reaching for the stars and knowing your gifts will take you on the journey of a lifetime while honoring what is important to you," explains the Ghanaian artisan.

The masks are designed to hang on the wall or to stand on a surface.