No 12D

Location: South-western exedra of the south gallery, on the marble balustrade of the seventh lodge (counting from east to west).

Material: Marble surface, 6th century.

Dimensions: 10 cm in width by 10.5 cm in length. 

Condition: A shallow, worn, and partially illegible carving, not intersected by other marks.

Technique: Incised.

Description: The design consists of three squares—small, medium, and large—placed one inside the other and connected by four lines that pass through the centers of their sides. Only two lines are clearly preserved; the rest are faded, interrupted, and uneven. The board appears poorly designed: the sides of the squares are not straight, and the gaps between them vary in size. 

Attribution: Game board for alignment games, known as Merels (or Nine Men's Mills).

Publications: Thomov, Th. The Game of “Nine-Mens Morris” in the Church of St Sophia, Constantinople, in Bulgarian Middle Ages: Alliance, Power, History, ed. by Georgi Nikolov and Angel Nikolov (Sofia: University of Sofia St Kliment Ohridski Press, 2013), 437-452.

Commentary: Thomov, The Game of “Nine-Mens Morris”, 437-452.

Date: Unknown.