Who is depicted on the playing cards? Who came up with the first map? When did card games appear?

The first map, which is mentioned, was created on a piece clays.

What are cards for?

Imagine how difficult it would be to describe in words all and buildings in your city. Easier to portray or their position.

Here is the map!

The first mentioned map was created on a piece of clay, which was then burned. This was in Egypt over 4000 years ago.

How were the cards used?

In ancient times, landowners depicted on the maps of their possessions, kings - the lands of their kingdom.

But when a person tried to depict the location of distant objects on a map, he collided with.

This is due to the fact that the Earth is round, so measuring large is enough.

And the stronomes helped in the creation of maps

Astronomers were of great help to the early cartographers, as their studies were related to the size and shape of the Earth.

Eratosthenes, who was born in 276 BC in Greece, determined the diameter of the Earth. His data was close to valid.

His methodology made it possible for the first time to correctly calculate the distance to the north and south.

Parallels and meridians

At about the same time, Hipparchus proposed to divide the world map into equal parts along the parallels and meridians.

The exact position of these imaginary lines, he believed, would be based on study.

Ptolemy in the second century AD, using this idea, created a revised map, divided into equal parts by parallels and meridians.

His textbook on geography was the main one on the subject after its discovery. The discoveries of other travelers have expanded their interest in maps and diagrams.

When was the first collection of maps published?

In 1570, Abraham Ortelius published the first collection of maps in Antwerp. The founder of modern cartography is Geradus Mercator.

On his maps, straight lines corresponded to curved lines on a globe. This made it possible to draw a straight line on the map between two points, as well as determine by the compass.

Such a map is called a "projection", it "projects", or translates the surface of the Earth onto a map.

Why are cards also called atlas?

The giant Atlas was depicted on the title page of the book (collection of maps) by Abraham Ortelius.

That is why the collection of maps today we call the "atlas".

The invention of the English cartographer

The world's first jigsaw puzzle was invented by the English cartographer John Spielsbury around 1760. But it was intended not for entertainment, but for educational purposes, since it was a map of Europe cut into states. This teaching method was very visual and the children really liked it, and only many years later other people came up with the idea of ​​releasing game puzzles.

Every inhabitant of our country has played cards at least once in his life. Be it a simple throw-in fool or an aristocratic preference. At the same time, most fans of card games are sure that some abstract characters are depicted as jacks, queens and kings. This is not true…

Joker: cheerful sorcerer

The most amazing thing is that the only card in the deck that does not have a real prototype is the Joker. In many card games, it is not used at all, while in others it acts as the highest trump card. At the same time, the word Joker itself, translated into Russian, means a merry fellow, a jester and a mischievous person. True, sometimes the Joker is drawn in the form of a little imp, thereby emphasizing the history of his appearance from the divination cards of the Tarot. In a deck of magic cards, the Joker is an evil wizard. At the same time, the most popular version of the origin of the word "Joker" is the name of the game Juker, in which this card character first appeared.

Card kings: the best among equals

According to historical chronicles, in Europe, playing cards began in the 14th century. They did not disdain to spread to cards and persons of royal blood. At this time, by the middle of the 15th century, the main images of queens, jacks and kings appeared in Europe. At that distant time, as today, the deck of cards consisted of 52 sheets, divided into four suits. This figure is not accidental, because 52 is the number of weeks in a year, and suits are four seasons. The most amazing thing is that today it is known exactly who was the prototype of the images of kings in the card deck. King David, known to readers from the Old Testament, became the king of the peak. The great conqueror Alexander the Great played the role of the king of clubs. King of tambourines, no less famous ruler - Julius Caesar. The youngest from a historical point of view turned out to be the king of hearts - Charlemagne. It is symbolic that each of the prototypes of the kings of cards left their indelible mark on the history of mankind. Alexander the Great conquered half of the world. King David turned out to be the most famous crowned character in the Old Testament. Well, Charlemagne created the Holy Roman Empire. Guy Julius Caesar - became famous as the most popular dictator of ancient Rome.

Card ladies: perfection itself

Card queens also had their real prototypes. However, these were not wives at all, people who gave a prototype to the kings of cards, but completely outsiders to them. The Lady of Hearts is the warlike Judith, who accomplished many feats on the pages of the Old Testament. It was she who cold-bloodedly cut off the head of the leader of the Assyrians, saving the city of childhood from the invasion of the conquerors. According to other sources, considered more reliable, the magnificent Elena Troyanskaya became the lady of hearts. According to legend, her mother was the queen of Sparta Leda, and her father was Zeus himself. The lady of diamonds is the wife of one of the knights of the Round Table - Ragnel. As a lady of clubs, artists depicted either the Greek goddess Argina, who was responsible for vanity and empty vanity, or Lucretia, representing virtue. It turned out to be more difficult with the lady of spades. Three real women claim her role at once, the image of each of whom at different times appeared on the cards. Most often it is Minevra - the goddess of wisdom, war and victory. Less often, Athena, who was also responsible for successful hostilities, or the legendary heroine of the Middle Ages, Jeanne d Arc, became the Queen of Spades.

Jack: Servant of Kings

Real historical figures acted as jacks in a deck of playing cards, as in the case of queens and kings. True, if these people knew how the treacherous artists who created the decks of cards treated them, they would be very offended. Jack in French means - servant or lackey. However, jacks were never prototypes. The Knave of Hearts is the knight Etienne de Vignelet - the closest associate of Jeanne d Arc. Jack of Spades is a noble knight Ogier of Denmark. According to legend, he repeatedly killed dragons, exterminated many giants and, in general, was a bosom friend of the Morgana fairy. Subsequently, the sorceress, for the nights of passionate love, rewarded Ogier with the gift of eternal youth. Jack of Clubs - the famous knight Lancelot. The jack of diamonds is played by the frantic Roland.

Chinese and dominoes

Who invented playing cards: Italians, Spaniards, French, or are they a gift to humanity from evil spirits? Alas! The author of playing cards is famous - these are the Chinese. The most amazing thing is that cards in China are not an independent game, but a simpler and cheaper kind of dominoes to manufacture. Once upon a time, the Chinese gambled with dice, then they were transformed into dominoes, which in turn were reborn into cards. It happened at the moment when the dominoes were transferred to the cardboard. The result was cards with a scale of points, to which figures were added over time. The Ching-tsze-Tung dictionary mentions that the cards were invented in 1120 AD, and after 12 years they became widespread throughout China. There is, however, an alternative version of the origin of playing cards from ancient Egypt. As if thousands of years ago, Egyptian priests encrypted all the wisdom of the world in 78 gold tablets. Some of them were symbolically depicted in the form of cards, and 56 of them (Minor Arcana) were playing, and 22 (Major Arcana) were used exclusively for fortune telling. However, both the Chinese and Egyptian versions of the origin of playing cards are nothing more than a legend, while in Europe cards have been known since the XIV century. For example, in 1367 in Bern, card games were banned by an official decree, and in 1377 the Pope's envoy complained that monks were playing cards right outside the walls of their monastery.

Very long time the invention of playing cards attributed to the 14th century French painter Jacqueline Grangonner, who allegedly was the first to invent these small painted cardboard sheets. And he did this in order to amuse Charles VI with them in the moments of enlightenment of the darkened mind of His Majesty.

This version was first refuted in the 18th century by two learned writers, the abbots de Longrue and Reeve, who convincingly proved in their dissertations that cards and card games appeared long before the reign of this poor sovereign.

The first indisputable proof of this is the original act of the Cologne Cathedral, which forbade clergy to play cards.

This act came much earlier than the time when Grangonner handed the maps he had drawn to the insane monarch. The decent fee he received for these cards prompted the artist to be creative, and he began to actively work on improving the design of the cards. He replaced some figures on maps, and during the reign of Charles VII made further changes to the images on the maps and came up with the names of the figures that they bear now.

So, at the whim of the artist David, the peak King, was the emblem of Charles VII, and the king of hearts was named Charlemagne. Queen Regina in the club lady portrayed Mary, wife of Charles VII.

Pallas, the Queen of Spades, personified the Virgin of Orleans, Joan of Arc. Rachel, the lady of diamonds - the gentle Agnes Sorel, and the lady of hearts Judith - the light "moral" Isabella of Bavaria. Four jack(squires) stood for four brave knights: Ogier and Lancelo under Charlemagne, Hector de Gallard and La Gira under Charles VII. And other names of the cards were sustained by the artist in the taste of that time - a warlike allegory. Worms were the emblem of bravery, spades and tambourines represented weapons, clubs - food, fodder and ammunition. Finally, ace(as) in its Latin meaning represented what has always been recognized as the main wealth of war - money.

Thus, the painter Grangonner is not the inventor of maps, but left to his compatriots and everyone for an inheritance, which in many ways contributed and contributes now to the entertainment of people, and not only idle, but also business, and led to a variety of activities in all strata of society.

The phenomenon of the rapid spread of maps around the world is unparalleled. Cards are played all over the world. Maps can be the topic of research for a philosopher and a psychologist, a statistician and an economist, for a moralist and a clergyman ...

I must admit that origin of maps is still covered with impenetrable darkness. Scientists realized too late, time managed to destroy monuments that could shed light on the history of the emergence of maps. However, many learned people have devoted most of their lives to researching the history of playing cards.

But, despite all their efforts, this story is still replete with many blank spots, confused, and it is safe to say that hardly anyone will ever be able to find out when the cards actually appeared and when for the first time the first players sat down at the gambling table.

What playing cards were made of

Actually, for a card game it is not necessary to have those playing cards that we know at the present time: rectangular, oval, round or any other shape, made of thick cardboard. They can be made from wood, leather, ivory, or even metal. Such maps can be seen in many museums around the world. In some countries, cards are still made from wood, in some places from plastic materials in the form of dominoes, especially for card games such as Rams and Canasta... Thus, the material from which the cards are made can be different. The most suitable, however, turned out to be cards made of special paper. Moreover, such paper appeared almost simultaneously in many countries.

If paper was indeed invented in China as early as 105 AD, then paper maps appeared not much later.

There are many legends about the invention of cards. According to one of them, a beautiful princess was kidnapped by one robber in prehistoric times. While in captivity, she made cards from leather and taught her enslaver to play them. The robber allegedly was so fascinated by the game of cards that he released the princess to freedom as a token of gratitude.

One Greek legend attributes the invention of cards to Palamedes, the son of the Euboean king Nauplius, very clever and cunning, who, for example, managed to expose Odysseus himself. Odysseus wanted to stay away from the war of the Greeks against Troy. When Palamed found him in this connection. Odysseus pretended to be crazy. And he did it this way: he also harnessed a donkey to the plow of his bulls, and began to sow the field not with grains, but sprinkle salt into the furrows. However, Palamed immediately figured out the deception. He returned to the palace, took from the cradle the son of Odysseus - Telemachus, brought him into the field and laid him in the furrow in front of a team of oxen and a donkey. Odysseus, of course, turned to the side, giving himself away. This cunning of Palamed was the basis for various inventions to be attributed to him. He allegedly invented scales, letters, dice, some measures, and during the many years of siege of Troy - playing cards. And it happened 1000 years before our era!

There are researchers who name another person who supposedly invented the cards. He is allegedly one of the seven sages of ancient Greece, namely the philosopher Kylon, who wanted to help the poor forget about food. To do this, he invented cards, which the poor began to play and during the game they completely forgot about hunger.

The list of legends and tales about the invention of cards can be continued, but it is clear that they are not the invention of one single person.

How were the rules of the old card games developed?

It can be assumed that these were, first of all, combination games of the type of the current games of Rams and Canasta, that is, games in which it was considered necessary to combine cards as quickly as possible by pictures, colors, etc. This is evidenced by the fact that there were games in which cards were used not only with 3 and 4 images, but also with 5, 6 and more. In Korea, cards are played with the image of 8 figures: a man, a horse, an antelope, a rabbit, a pheasant, a crow, a fish and a star. And for each of these figures there are 10 different cards, that is, the deck consists of 80 cards.

In the old days, the Chinese even played with depreciated banknotes. Since there were few coins, and long-distance travel with a lot of money was dangerous, already in the 7th century the state allowed the so-called "flying money". For the wasteful life of their courts, the overlords needed more and more money and ordered them to be printed in heaps. Money depreciated at a catastrophic rate, and it got to the point that in the 9th century it lost all value. Old banknotes were exchanged for new ones in the ratio of 1: 100, 1: 500, 1: 1000, 1: 2000 ... It was at this time that old money began to play cards. And these money cards existed in China almost until the end of the 9th century. In China, they still play cards, which depict a general, two advisers, elephants, horses, war chariots, guns, as well as 5 soldiers. These 16 shapes are colored red, white, yellow and green. Each suit is repeated twice, and thus, the total number of cards in the deck is 128 pieces. The shape of the Chinese cards has always been characteristic: they are long and narrow.

Indian cards have a completely different shape, they are square and sometimes round. Indian cards usually had 4 suits, but there were also 12 colored cards, and each color had 12 cards, that is, the number of cards in the deck was 144.

When playing cards appeared in Russia

Presumably in Russia, the cards appeared soon after their appearance in Europe, in particular in Germany and France. They quickly penetrated, first of all, into the ruling circles. In any case, already under Anna Ioannovna and Elizaveta Petrovna, card games, especially in court circles, flourished, and card games reached their peak during the reign of Catherine II. It is reliably known that Catherine's grandees played almost everyone without exception. Many of them gambled colossal fortunes, while losing tens of thousands of dessiatines and serfs. The peasants quite often, waking up in the morning, learned that they, at the whim of the owner, were lost to another person and became his property. Courtyard girls, especially beautiful ones, sometimes went to the stake for a colossal sum, and along with them hunting dogs and thoroughbred horses went to the stake.

There is no exact information about when the cards appeared in Russia. Some researchers believe that this happened quite late, around the second quarter of the 9th century. However, this contradicts other obvious facts. Researcher Y. Dmitriev reports that as early as 1759 the mechanic Pyotr Dumolin, who arrived in Moscow, was demonstrating "moving maps" in one of the houses in the Nemetskaya Sloboda. And another Russian researcher A. Vyatkin attributes the appearance of cards in Russia to an even earlier date, to the 7th century, and substantiates this with the well-known tsarist Code of 1649, which instructed players to act "like with tats," that is, with thieves. According to the same Vyatkin, the cards came to Russia through Ukraine, from Germany ("the local Cossacks whiled away the time playing a card game").

The fact that cards appeared in Russia simultaneously with their arrival in Europe is evidenced by the fact that Russians "kept pace" with the Europeans in mastering the secrets of many card games.

Video: History of Playing Cards

Today, eight out of every ten houses in the UK play a card game, but in the rest, if you look carefully, you can find a deck of cards. The game of cards is so familiar to most of us that it even seems to us that they have always existed.

Perhaps playing cards have been known since the time of man's creation of the visual arts. Their history goes back so far that no one can say for sure when and where they first appeared.

Who Invented Playing Cards?

For a long time, it was believed that playing cards were invented by the Chinese, since paper money and playing cards in China were almost identical in the past. We know that playing cards existed in China a thousand years ago! But still, at the present time it is not clear who should give priority to the invention of cards: the Chinese, Egyptians, Arabs or Hindus.

Since their inception, cards have become one of the ways to predict fate. It is possible that they were used for this purpose before they were used for various gambling. In the Middle Ages, sorcerers used playing cards to predict the future.

When did playing cards come to Europe? Some believe that they were brought from their campaigns by the crusaders. Others say that through the Saracens they got to Spain or Italy, while others say that the Gypsies brought them to Eastern Europe. There is no doubt, however, that playing cards have been known in Europe since the 13th century.

There were originally many different types of playing cards. Common were, for example, curly cards (there were 22 of them in the deck, and there were no numbers among them) and digital cards (there were 56 cards in this deck - and not a single picture). The French were the first to create a 52-card deck. They used digital cards and kept the king, queen, jack from figure cards. This 52-card deck was adopted by the British.

The earliest cards were drawn by hand, but with the development of woodcarving, playing cards became cheaper and very quickly spread among the common people.

It often happens with the player:
Sat down as a rich man - got up as a poor man.
Who took the cards, deceived by profit,
Tom does not know the game is happy.
Gambling is sinful:
It is not given to us by God, -
Satan invented it!

Sebastian BRANT. 1494 g.

Have you ever asked yourself the question: What do the suits of playing cards mean? Where did the names come from - jack, ace, clubs, spades, hearts, etc. If - yes! Then this article is for you. Especially impressionable, please do not read)

A few words about the history of the issue:

There are 3 versions of the origin of the cards:

1. First - chinese, although many still do not want to believe in it. Chinese and Japanese cards are too unusual for us both in appearance and in the nature of the game, which is more like dominoes. However, there is no doubt that already in the 8th century in China, first sticks were used for games, and then strips of paper with the designations of various symbols. These distant ancestors of cards were also used in place of money, so they had three suits: a coin, two coins, and a lot of coins. And in India, playing cards depicted the figure of the four-armed Shiva, who was holding a goblet, sword, coin and rod. Some believe that these symbols of the four Indian classes gave rise to modern card suits.

2. Egyptian version of the origin of the cards, replicated by the latest occultists. They argued that in ancient times, the Egyptian priests wrote down all the wisdom of the world on 78 gold tablets, which were also depicted in the symbolic form of maps. 56 of them - "Minor Arcana" - became ordinary playing cards, and the remaining 22 "Major Arcana" became part of the mysterious Tarot deck used for fortune-telling. This version was first published in 1785 by the French occultist Etteila, and his successors Eliphas Levi and Dr. Papus and the English Mathers and Crowley created their own systems for interpreting Tarot cards. The name is allegedly derived from the Egyptian "ta rosh" ("path of the kings"), and the cards themselves were brought to Europe either by the Arabs, or by the gypsies, who were often considered immigrants from Egypt. True, scientists have not been able to find any evidence of such an early existence of the Tarot deck.

3. European version... (We will dwell on it in more detail - it is considered the main one). Common maps appeared on the European continent no later than the XIV century. Back in 1367 in the city of Bern, the card game was banned, and ten years later, the shocked papal envoy watched with horror as the monks enthusiastically cut cards at the walls of their monastery. In 1392, Jacques Gringonner, the jester of the mentally ill French King Charles VI, drew a deck of cards to amuse his master. The then deck differed from the current one in one detail: it had only 32 cards. There were four ladies missing, whose presence seemed then unnecessary. Only in the next century did Italian artists begin to depict Madonnas not only in paintings, but also on maps.

4. Occult... According to the writer S.S. Narovchatova, under Ivan the Terrible a certain Chercelli appeared in Moscow. Churchlli, in Italy he was called French, in France - German, in Germany - Pole, and in Poland - became Russian. He brought to Moscow a chest wrapped in a shawl, black with red streaks, which seemed to correspond to the colors - black and red. Cards began to be in demand. At first, the authorities were tolerant of practicing cards, but then they began to persecute them, since they saw the interference of evil forces here. Of the legislative monuments about cards, he first mentions the Code of 1649, which prescribes with the card players "as it is written about tats" (thieves), i.e. beat mercilessly, cut off fingers and hands. Decree of 1696. it was introduced to search all those suspected of wanting to play cards "and from whom the cards are taken out, beat with a whip." In 1717. it is prohibited to play cards under the threat of a monetary fine. In 1733. for repeat offenders, a prison, or batogs, is defined.

So what do the suits and meanings of the cards mean?

The structure of a deck of cards is known to everyone: ace, king, queen, jack, even lower tens, nines, and so on up to sixes or up to twos in a full deck - a typical hierarchical ladder from the highest to the lowest:

The Joker is a frivolous figure in tights, a buffoon's cap, bells ... And in his hands is a scepter with a human head strung on it, which is now replaced by humane artists with musical "cymbals". In pre-revolutionary stage performances, a similar character was called Fradyavolo. "Joker" is above all, it has no suit and is considered the strongest in the game. Thus, at the top of the pyramid is not the King, but Daus ...

Ace is a word of Polish origin from the German Daus. The German-Russian dictionary indicates the meaning of the word: Daus - devil. It is quite possible that Daus is a variant of the distortion of the Greek diabolos - a defamator.

King. Interestingly, all of the card images had real or legendary prototypes. For example, four kings are the greatest monarchs of antiquity: Charlemagne (worms), the biblical king David (spades), Julius Caesar (tambourines) and Alexander the Great (clubs).

There was no such unanimity with regard to the ladies - for example, the lady of hearts was either Judith, then Helena of Trojan, or Dido. The Queen of Spades has traditionally been portrayed as the goddess of war - Athena, Minerva, and even Joan of Arc. After long disputes, the biblical Rachel was portrayed in the role of the lady of spades: she was ideally suited for the role of the "queen of money", since she had robbed her own father. Finally, the lady of clubs, which on early Italian cards appeared as the virtuous Lucrezia, turned into Argina - an allegory of vanity and vanity.

Valet (fr. Valet, "servant", "lackey", etymologically diminutive of "vassal"; the old Russian name "slave", "hlap") is a playing card depicting a young man. All real prototypes of jacks (according to the European version) are the French knight La Hire, nicknamed Satan (worms), as well as the heroes of the epic Ogier the Dane (spades), Roland (tambourines) and Lancelot Ozerny (clubs).

"Trump" cards, their very name, have their own special purpose. "Kosher" i.e. Talmudists call ritual sacrifices "pure" ... which, as you understand, is connected with Kabbalah.

Now the suits:

In the French version, swords became "spades", cups - into "worms", denarii - into "tambourines", and "wands" - into "crosses" or "clubs" (the last word in French means "clover leaf") ... In different languages, these names still sound differently; for example, in England and Germany they are "spades", "hearts", "diamonds" and "clubs", and in Italy - "spears", "hearts", "squares" and "flowers". On German maps you can still find the old names of the suits: "acorns", "hearts", "bells" and "leaves".

As for the occult principles, their essence is as follows:
1. "Cross" (Trefa) - a card with the image of the cross on which Jesus was crucified and which is worshiped by half the world. Translated from Yiddish, "trefa" means "bad" or "evil"

2. "Blame" (lances) - symbolizes the gospel lance, that is, the spear of the holy martyr Longinus the Centurion, with which he pierced the stomach of Jesus

3. "Worms" - means the Gospel sponge on a reed: “one of the soldiers took a sponge, filled it with vinegar and, putting it on the reed, gave Him to drink”

4. "Tambourines" - a graphic image of the Gospel forged four-sided serrated nails with which the hands and feet of Jesus were nailed to the wooden Cross.

An interesting fact is that in the USSR during the NEP years there were attempts to depict workers with peasants on maps and even introduce new suits - "sickles", "hammers" and "stars". True, such independent activity was quickly suppressed, and the cards were stopped for a long time to be printed as "attributes of bourgeois decomposition."