Click on the image to play the game
Youtube channel
Click on the image to play the game
Université de Fribourg
Rue du Criblet 13
CH-1700 Fribourg
This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
OKLearn moreWe may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Google reCaptcha Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:
You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.
Privacy Policy“Play Hide and Seek in Herculaneum” is the new animation realised by Steve Simons and Sonya Nevin (Panoply) for Locus Ludi.
This delicate animation, evoking the carefree happiness of loved children and hope, is meant as a gesture of solidarity with all our Italian friends, our colleagues and the many people throughout Europe and the world who are currently isolated. In the past as today, play and games can provide suspended moments of shared happiness.
The animation is based on a wall painting from the so-called cryptoporticus of the House of the Stags (Casa dei Cervi), one of the largest dwellings in Herculaneum with a beautiful terrace that once overlooked the sea.
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE destroyed the city but the pyroclastic flow preserved the splendour of this wealthy house.
Children may have actually played hide and seek in the corridor which was decorated with a series of small panels depicting Erotes engaged in various lively activities.
The scene is a perfect example of the contribution of images to the history of play and games: it preserves the memory of children’s social life ; they perform a collective activity, hide and seek, which otherwise left no archaeological trace and belongs to an immaterial heritage. The picture shares an imaginary, cheerful world where children are no longer mortal, but divine: they are depicted as carefree winged supernatural beings.
Images, however, do not provide us with game rules. The dictionary (Onomasticon) written by Julius Pollux in the 2nd century CE provides a list of games with descriptions.
Pollux lists four variants of hide and seek games : Myinda, Apodidraskinda, Chalké Muia, some of which are still practiced today. But which one is illustrated in Herculaneum? The animations skilfully propose different hypotheses