Game tiles reveal everyday life aboard a Mongol invasion ship

Divers off Japan's Takashima island have also uncovered a stern section that helps establish the wreck's considerable size.

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【独自】モンゴル襲来＝元寇の沈没船から麻雀の起源「天九牌」発見　“最大級”とみられる船尾も確認…JNNカメラが捉えた約750年前の海底調査｜TBS NEWS DIG

Game pieces, rather than weapons, are offering a glimpse of life aboard a ship that sank during the Mongol invasions of Japan nearly 750 years ago.

Japanese broadcaster TBS NEWS DIG Powered by JNN reports that an underwater survey off Takashima, in Matsuura, Nagasaki Prefecture, has recovered dice and Chinese tien gow tiles for the first time at the invasion wrecks. Kokugakuin University professor Eishi Ikeda identifies tien gow as a Chinese game whose tiles are sometimes described as an ancestor of mahjong tiles.

The camera follows divers to the seabed, where a reporter points out the stern of the third invasion ship discovered at the site. It lay beneath roughly a meter of mud. Internal partitions and the ship's bottom show construction features characteristic of Chinese vessels of the period.

Including a section identified last year, the surviving remains extend about 15 meters. Researchers believe that makes it one of the largest of the three invasion wrecks found there, not necessarily the full length of the original vessel.

The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty attempted to invade Japan in 1274 and 1281 under Kublai Khan. These finds shift attention from the military campaign to the people carried aboard its ships. Ikeda notes that many recovered objects concern everyday life rather than arms and armor; the survey team describes them as valuable evidence of how people lived at sea.

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