When the packs first appeared they were expensive, having been hand painted. The cards we now buy in the shops, though, are mostly based on the French rendition of the game pieces when they replaced the Mamluk court cards with representations of European royalty and characters. Most cultures had their own designs, references and games, gradually morphing into the one we now know centuries later. The European version of the game seems to be derived from the Islamic world, with the roles like ‘king’ inherited from the Mamluk era. (The oldest fragments of cards were found in Egypt.) During the 14th century, the cards made their way to up to Europe through the Italian and Iberian peninsulas. Alcohol and money seem to have been connected with card games even from these earliest sources.įrom China it travelled to India and Persia, spreading into Egypt during the Mamluk empire. The first book on the topic is from a century later, called Yezi Gexi, allegedly written bij a woman. The first reference to the game is from 868, mentioning a princess playing with her in-laws.
Cards were produced using woodblock printing. Games using playing cards probably go back to 9th century China when it was known as the ‘leaf game’.