B29: Early Antique German Games Box

This games-box was probably made in Augsburg or Nuremberg and dates from the 16th / 17th Century

The chess board squares and corner cartouches show solids in three dimensions and probably derive from
Euclidean and Platonic geometry outlined in the 1568 book 'Perspectives in Regular Solids' by Wenzel Jamnitzer (Nurnberg).
The internal backgammon boards has finely inlaid central garlands of flowering shrubs and inlaid backgammon obelisks.

The raised borders contains an inlaid inscriptions consisting of three lines of rhyme followed by a moral:
"Hab eben acht
gib deine gaben wol bedacht
sonst wirst du veine schneider gemacht
Speil bescheidenlich!"

This early form of German was used in the 16th and 17thC and translates as:

Play with understanding! Pay close attention, Give out your assets with care, Otherwise you will be made to lose

Many thanks to Professor Henrike Lähnemann of Medieval German (faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages Oxford) for his support

The reverse exterior is a board inlaid for Merels with raised borders inlaid with colored (mellowed) three dimensional solids.
The gamesbox closed measures 44cms x 44cms x 6 cms.

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