Age Unidentified - Lanka
Ruhuna - Red-ware Roulette disk

SPECIFICATIONS Material Red-ware Type Roulette Diameter 33.6 mm Thickness 7. mm Weight 10.19 gms Shape disk Edge smooth

Obverse : Four parallel rouletted lines on slightly convex surface with three straight intersecting lines cut across
Reverse : Smooth unmarked slightly concave surface.

Many Red-ware disks of various sizes and weights are frequently found in Ruhuna. They may have been shaped from broken pottery and used to play games such as draughts (checkers). Shown on right is a photograph taken at Ruhuna of a dozen of them from which I picked a representative example shown above.

In the 1999 catalog by Osmund Bopearachchi and Rajah Wickramasinhe titled Ruhuna. An Ancient Civilization Re-visited they are listed as Miscellaneous Objects under Black and Red ware. It was obtained from the same collector who provided most of the items for that book.

If anyone has information on the age and use of items like it please let me know details about it.

The Red-ware disk was scanned at 300 dpi and displayed at 200 dpi. It was obtained in 2001 December from Mr A. Ratnayaka a collector in Katharagama, Lanka.