The long journey of Thinhama
A quiet game of lines and mills — born in the ancient world, carried across oceans, and made Maldivian with cowrie shells and red beads.
A board needs no more than three squares, nine beads and nine shells.
In the islands
In the Maldives, Thinhama needs no board from a shop. The lines are scratched in the sand, drawn on a wooden plank, or scored into a tabletop in a teashop. The pieces are whatever is at hand — most traditionally red beads against cowrie shells, two of the most familiar small objects of island life.
It is a game of patience and foresight, played between friends, between generations, while the work of the day slows down.
Cowrie shells & the Maldives
The Maldives was one of the great sources of cowrie shells in the Indian Ocean world. For centuries these small, glossy shells were gathered on the atolls and shipped across the sea — to India, to Arabia, to Africa and beyond.
In many lands cowries were used as money — strings of shells bought rice, cloth and livestock. A Maldivian cowrie in a Thinhama game is a piece of that history, still turning in a player's fingers.
The money cowrie — a small shell with a long journey.
One board, many names
Thinhama belongs to one of the most widespread board games ever played. Around the world the same three squares are known as:
- Nine Men's Morris — England
- Mühle — Germany ("mill")
- Marelles / Mérelles — France
- Morell / Morris — across Europe
- Thinhama — the Maldives
Boards have been found carved into the roofs of Egyptian temples, scratched on Roman pavements, and cut into the decks of sailing ships — a game that travelled with people across the whole world, and settled in the islands of the Indian Ocean.
An ancient mill board is carved into the roof of the temple of Kurna in Egypt — one of the earliest known examples of the game.
Mill boards appear scratched into stones across the Roman world — in forts, forums and marketplaces.
The game is a favourite in England and across Europe; in France the boards are called marelles.
Carried aboard ships, the game circles the globe. In the Indian Ocean, the Maldives' famous cowrie shells become natural pieces for it.
In the Maldives the game lives on as Thinhama — played in homes, teashops and now here, in your browser.