To explain the workings of the world, the earliest humans referred to unseen powers that controlled everything from the weather to why certain mountains or seas existed. In one ancient Greek myth, the Olympian gods Zeus, Hades and Poseidon were said to throw dice to decide how to split up the Universe, using chance to determine who would rule heaven, hell and the seas.
Early civilizations made sense of Life’s outcomes, good or bad, by giving credit or blame to ruling deities. Among the many ancient cultures that looked to gods and goddesses for luck and good fortune were the Aztecs, whose god Yacatecuhtli determined commercial success or failure. Others included the Chinese (Cai Shen), Egyptians (Bes), Hindus (Lakshmi), and early tribes of Africa (Ikenga).
In Norse mythology, Freya was the goddess associated with runes, the wheel of fortune and other forms of divination. The Japanese worshiped Kichijōten, the goddess of beauty, merit, and luck. Greeks called upon the blessings of the goddess Tyche, while Romans prayed for assistance from the goddesses Fortuna and Abundantia, with their powers to bestow fortune and abundance upon supplicants.
It is interesting to note that the majority of these entities were female, perhaps owing to the perceived feminine qualities of chance—the ability to nourish, protect and relieve, while often being fickle and changeable in nature. Even today, gamblers still refer to “Lady Luck.”
Given the uncertainty of the world, it followed that mankind’s earliest “tools of chance” were used for divination, rather than play. For example, bundles of sacred tamarisk twigs were used by the Magi of Babylonia. In ancient Assyria, divining rods were employed. The Parsis of India had predictive tools called baresma. And Celtic Rune Stones used to foretell events have existed from around 500 B.C.
Even earlier than that, Christian literature makes frequent references to the “casting of lots”—a solemn appeal to God to decide a matter supernaturally. One of the oldest such recorded instances is how lots were cast by sailors around 800 B.C. to discover who was responsible for a great storm, causing a shipmate named Jonah to be thrown overboard.
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