Marble game
The marble game (also known as marbles ) is a children's game with spherical objects that is widespread throughout the world .
Historical
Finds from the Babylonian , Harappic , Roman and Germanic times show that the game of marbles is very old. The oldest marbles date from 3000 BC. A number of round gemstones were found as additions in the grave of an Egyptian child in Naqada . The British Museum has marbles from Crete dating from 2000–1700 BC. They were found in the Minoan archaeological site at Petsofas Mountain near Palekastro .
Based on archaeological finds, it is assumed that the various games that were played with marbles in Central Europe increased in popularity since around 1500. Ball size, material and color of the marbles were varied many times: In addition to different marbles made of unglazed or white engobed red earthenware, there are mainly brown stoneware marbles or, since the mid-19th century, marbles made of glass.
The production of glass marbles did not begin until 1848 in the Thuringian town of Lauscha . It was there that the glassblower Christoph Simon Karl Greiner invented the so-called Märbelschere . Märbel is the itzgründischen word for marble, which was also adopted in the standard German. In September 1848, Christoph Simon Karl Greiner was granted the concession for the sole production of artificial agate and gemstone balls . The balls, made in all possible colors with ornate and curved spiral patterns inside the glass marble, are made in the traditional way by adding paint or colored glass ribbons and bows to the removed glass gob .
Great variety of names
In German-speaking countries, the marble game (murmuring) and the marble are known by numerous names. Some common names for the marble (in the singular) are Alabaster, Bickel, Bucker, Bugger, Datzer, Dotz, Duxer, Glaser, Heuer, Iller, Katzedonier, Klicker, Klucker, Knicker, Letsch, Marbel, Märbel, Marmel, Mermel, Picker , Schießer, Schneller, Schusser, Steinnuss, Üller and Wetzel.
The word marble is the Low German form of the dissimilated variants of the word marble (Middle High German marmel ) that have existed since Old High German , from which marbles were at least temporarily made. The rest of the words mostly describe the clicking sound of the balls hitting each other or the way they move.
material
Stone marbles (mostly marble) were already owned by children in ancient Rome. But all over the world, children also played with glass marbles, pearls , stones , nuts and shells . For a long time, colored marbles made of clay were widespread in Europe.
Today there are mainly glass marbles. Occasionally one comes across marbles made of steel , which mostly come from ball bearings . Even today, stones are still ground into marbles in only a few ball mills in the Alps.
game
The game variations and rules are as numerous as the colors of the little balls. Mostly it is played outdoors on firm ground. There it is easiest to fabricate a hole the size of a fist with the shoe heel and tamp the loose ground around it again or to draw the throwing lines usual with other variants.
For small children there are also marble runs (also known as marble or kuller runs) or marble run systems (also for demanding pastimes) made of plastic or wood, such as Cuboro .
value
As a rule, the marbles are assigned a certain value depending on the design. This is important as most games come with an equal stake. Simple glass marbles with a diameter of around 1 cm usually have the value of one. Larger marbles count as twos, fives or tens in play value . The inner workings of the marble also play an important role. Different values result depending on the color of the decorations. Balls made of other materials such as porcelain or steel achieve even higher values than twenty-five or fifties , depending on their size .
The exact assignment of values is handled differently from region to region.
Variants (selection)
Here are just a few of the numerous variants and standard excerpts. In other countries there are even more unusual techniques and game goals:
Hole , one- hole , circles, or sinkholes
The players line up about 5 to 8 steps in front of a fist-sized hole in the ground after they have previously negotiated the order ( counting rhyme or shouting). Everyone now throws 3 or more (depending on the arrangement) clickers at the hole. The game continues depending on the distance of the individual clickers from the hole. The player who already put the most in the hole or the one whose clickers are closest to the hole starts. He pushes the balls lying on the ground into the hole with his fingers. If he misses, the next one is on the line. Whoever pits all of his balls first or who plays the last ball into the hole is the winner and receives either all marbles or a previously negotiated bet. The losers can now challenge the winner again to retrieve the lost marbles. For tournaments, the rules for mumbling the cool were codified and last revised in 2016.
Five-hole
Five holes are dug in the earth as shown on a dice (D6). The previously agreed stake is now placed in each dimple . Now everyone can try. If you hit a hole, you get the marbles in it. Whoever hits next to it or into an already empty hole must hand in the marble as the next bet.
Pointing or Pointing
A line indicates the Standmal . A player throws his marble from there. The other tries to hit it with a thumb shot . If he succeeds, the marble is his. If he misses, it's the other's turn. Whoever hits the first marble thrown is the winner.
Eye shot
Everyone places the marble insert in a small circle. With your eyes closed you stand over the circle and let the marble fall from head height. If someone in a circle is knocked out, it belongs to the person who has hit.
The same variant can also be played by trying to snap the balls off the ground from an agreed distance.
Meet castles or palaces or pyramids
Everyone builds a small castle or palace in front of them by forming a pyramid out of four marbles . If you manage to destroy them with a marble hit, you get all four. Otherwise the failed attempts remain with the opponent.
Wall marbles
From a set distance, the players try to get their marbles as close as possible to a wall or a curb. Whoever comes closest wins all marbles. There are three variants: either the marbles must have hit the wall or the curb beforehand, so only rebounds count . Or the marbles are not allowed to touch the wall or curb, so the rebounders are eliminated. Or rebound and non-rebounded marbles count equally and only the smallest distance is important.
Rebound
One of them throws, snaps or rolls a marble against a wall or a curb so that it bounces back and stays there. The others now try to get their marbles as close as possible to the first marble after the rebound. The player whose marble is closest to the first wins.
Marble boules
This variant is similar to the classic boules game : a target marble or other object is thrown or placed a little ahead. Now each player tries to get as close as possible to the goal with one or more marbles. You can also shoot other marbles away. The winner is the one who is closest to the goal in the end.
techniques
Depending on the type of game, several techniques are used when playing marbles:
- When throwing the joint , the marble is loosely held between thumb and forefinger - both curved - and thrown from the wrist to the target.
- When shooting with the thumb, the marble lies in the curve of the index finger and on the thumbnail and is pulled forward with the thumb. A front knuckle of the index finger rests on the floor and the hand should not be moved.
- When snapping, the marble is snapped lightly or firmly (depending on the distance) with the index or middle finger. Between the fingernail and the angled foremost phalanx of the thumb, pressure is first built up and the corresponding energy is stored in the elastic extensor tendon, which suddenly accelerates the finger and lets it snap away a bit as soon as the finger is consciously let off the thumb.
- When pushing, you roll the marble forward with your index or middle finger .
- When Tuppen pressing somewhat obliquely from behind and above with one of the stronger finger on the lying on the ground marble until they slip away to the front and with a spin losrollt.
Championships
German championship
Murmeln has also been held as the German championship since 1996 . Numerous clubs meet and determine the champions in the categories:
- English ring game and
- German hole click (also called Kuhlemurmeln )
The first championship took place on October 19, 1996 in Erfurt .
On August 18, 2007, the 12th German Championship took place in Ludwigshafen, the host was the 1st MSC Ludwigshafen / Friesenheim, which last year was German champion in murmuring. This year it was different, because the new German champion in Kuhlemurmeln was the 1st Södel clicker club. 2nd place went to the 1. Kirchener Klickerverein, 3rd place went to Marble Rebels from Ludwigshafen / Friesenheim. In the English ring game, the then reigning world champion was also German champion, namely the 1st MC Erzgebirge Neukirchen. The Sachsenbrunn Murmler came in second, and the Marble Rebels from Ludwigshafen in third. In the individual ratings, Chris Pampel from 1. MC Erzgebirge prevailed in the ring game and Stephen Sutton from the Marble Rebels Ludwigshafen in Kuhlemurmeln and thus became German champions in the individual.
On August 16, 2008 the 13th German Championship took place in Wölfersheim / Södel in Hesse, hosted by the 1st Södel clicker club. The SKV was also the most dominant team in Kuhlemurmeln, because two teams made it to the final. Thus the 1st SKV became the new German champion and German runner-up in Kuhlemurmeln. Third place went to SV Jennelt-Uttum 58 from East Frisia. There was no longer an individual evaluation this year. In the English ring game, the 1st MC Erzgebirge Neukirchen prevailed again and defended the title of German champion. The new German runner-up was the Marble Rebels from Ludwigshafen / Friesenheim, the Sachsenbrunner Murmler came third. German champion in the individual was again Chris Pampel from the 1st MC Erzgebirge.
At the German Championship in Södel 2019, the 1st Södel clicker club prevailed among 26 teams and has now become the record champion with eight championship titles.
World championship in the English ring game
But world championships also exist internationally. Every year on Good Friday the best marble players in the world meet in the small English town of Tinsley Green not far from London's Gatwick Airport. The "British and World Marbles Championships" have officially been held since 1932 in and around the Greyhound Pub, one of the five houses that make up the whole town. The discipline English ring game is played .
The world championship in the English ring game could be won for the first time in 2002 by a German team, the Saxonia Globe Snippers from Chemnitz, who were able to defend the world championship title in 2003 and 2004 as well. The 2006 World Championship in Tinsley Green was won by the 1st MC Erzgebirge. Second place went to the Handcross 49ers from London. The 1st MC Erzgebirge also won the world championship in 2007, but in 2008 he had to surrender the title to the Yorkshire Meds team from northern England.
World championship in sand marble
The French organization Mondial Billes organizes this tournament. The game is played on a demanding course that is built using only sand and water. Every year in August there is the world finals in the sand marbles in Royan on the French Atlantic coast. Participation is open to those players who assert themselves against many opponents in the relevant qualifying tournaments, some of which take place all over the world, and have thus won the national title.
World Championship in Kuhlemurmeln
The World Championships in Kuhlemurmeln for individual players take place every year in Prague (Czech version of the game). The organizer is the Czech Marble Sports Association. On May 24, 2008 the first world championship in German Kuhlemurmeln for teams took place in Ludwigshafen. The winner and thus the first world champion was the 1st Södel clicker club, which prevailed against Turkey and the Czech Republic, as well as the German representatives of the Marble Rebels Ludwigshafen with the German national gligger team, Sachsenbrunner Murmler, 1st Kirchener Klickerverein and 1st MSC Ludwigshafen-Friesenheim .
Curiosities and interesting facts
- Shortly before hiding from the persecution, twelve-year-old Anne Frank gave 161 marbles to a girl next door in Amsterdam to keep. The marbles survived. They were exhibited for the first time until May 5, 2014 at The Second World War in 100 objects in the Kunsthal Rotterdam .
- The glass marble was "invented" because one actually wanted to make the manufacture of glass eyes, which previously consisted of semi-precious stones, cheaper. The inventor of the glass eye made from Lauschaer glass , Ludwig Müller-Uri , commissioned his son-in-law, the animal eye maker Christoph Simon Karl Greiner, to do this, which he succeeded after several attempts.
- In 1954, the American team The Grosvenor Bullets lost 40 of the 48 marbles they had carried with them in a short time during training in Hyde Park for the World Cup to the English street children and then broke it off.
- In Germany there has been a marble museum in Sachsenbrunn in the Thuringian Forest on the upper reaches of the Werra since 1995 . In this museum - also called Märbelmühle - after the fall of the Berlin Wall, three other Märbelmühle materials were incorporated into the museum.
- In 1977 in Mannheim-Seckenheim, based on an idea by Alfred Heierling, the 1st Klickerles Olympics with over 600 participants took place in the presence of the ZDF.
- In Freiburg im Breisgau there is the Ribblinghieler fool 's guild . Ribbling is called the marble in Alemannic . When small children cried because the older ones had trodden on the colorful, clayey ribbons, the crying little ones were despicably called "the Ribblinghielers".
See also
literature
- "Murmeln, Schusser, Klicker" by Renée Holler, Hugendubel-Verlag, ISBN 3-88034-293-8
- "A round thing" by Andreas vom Rothenbarth, self-published
- Manfred glasses , "Daz kint played and was fro". Playing from the Middle Ages to today, Lübeck 1995.
- Marina Junkes, The everyday history of the Unterhof dwellers in the mirror of the finds, in: Armand Baeriswyl / Marina Junkes, Der Unterhof in Diessenhofen, From the Adelsburg to the Training Center (Archeology in Thurgau 3), Frauenfeld 1995.
- Monika Knopf, Fascination Marble Game (Old Games - Rediscovered), Association of Youth Farms and Active Playgrounds ( ISBN 978-3-9810096-1-3 ), Stuttgart 2009
- Eva Stauch: "There is nothing like fun there". In: Andreas Pfeiffer (ed.), Toys lay in the pit and slept. Archaeological finds from Roman times and the Middle Ages. (Publication of the municipal museums Heilbronn, Museo 5), Heilbronn 1993, pp. 72–79, here especially 72–74.
- Stephan, Hans-Georg, Großalmerode - A European center for the production of technical ceramics, part II. Großalmerode 1995.
- Annemarieke Willemsen, children delijt. Middeleeuws speelgoed in de Nederlanden. (Nijmeegse Kunsthistorische Studies 6), Nijmegen 1998.
Web links
- Dutch Marble Sports Association
- Czech Marble Sports Association
- French marble organization
- German marble organization 2007-08
Individual evidence
- ↑ Raj Kumar Pruthi: Prehistory and Harappan Civilization. APH Publishing Corporation, New Delhi 2004, ISBN 81-7648-581-0 , p. 153 (English).
- ^ Glasses 1995, 41-42. Junkes 1995, 243; Willemsen 1998, 78.
- ↑ Stauch 1993, 72–74 with further literature.
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ http://www.murmelwelt.de/namen.html
- ↑ [2]
- ↑ [3]
- ↑ "[...] not until toy marbles were fashioned from marble stone and imported from Germany does the term 'marbles' appear (Gartley and Carskadden)." West Virginia Museum of American Glass
- ↑ Rules of the German Match Game - Kuhlemurmeln v1.2 from March 5, 2016 (on the website of the 1st Södeler Klickerverein)
- ^ Heinrich Handelmann: Popular and children's games of the duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg . Kiel: Homann 1862. p. 94. Digitized
- ↑ Report on the 12th German Championship in Ludwigshafen ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ www.soedeler-klickerverein.de .
- ↑ Rules of the game: English ring game (website of the 1st Södeler Klickerverein)
- ↑ http://www.schwarzmurmler.de/mmltinsley.htm
- ↑ Germany is world champion in murmuring , Tagesschau . April 15, 2006. Archived from the original on July 22, 2010. Retrieved on July 22, 2010.
- ↑ Press release about the world championship success of the German team in 2007 .
- ↑ World Championship 2008 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ Ceskýkulickový svaz
- ↑ http://orf.at/stories/2219317/2219318/ Anne Frank's glass marbles surfaced - gift to the neighbor's daughter, ORF.at of February 22, 2014.
- ↑ Panorama . In: Der Spiegel . No. 14 , 1954 ( online ).
- ↑ http://www.murmelmuseum.info/
- ↑ Ribblinghieler. Retrieved March 1, 2017 .
