Games played on three-in-a-row boards can be traced back to ancient Egypt where such game boards have been found on roofing tiles dating from around 1300 BCE.
An early variation of tok tak tokwas played in the Roman Empire, around the first century BC. It was called terni lapilli (three pebbles at a time) and instead of having any number of pieces, each player only had three, thus they had to move them around to empty spaces to keep playing. The game's grid markings have been found chalked all over Rome. Another closely related ancient game is three men's morris which is also played on a simple grid and requires three pieces in a row to finishand Picaria, a game of the Puebloans.
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