By the 11th century playing cards could be found throughout the Asian continent.Īncient Chinese “money cards” have four “suits”: coins (or cash), strings of coins (which may have been misinterpreted as sticks from crude drawings), myriads (of coins or of strings), and tens of myriads (where a myriad is 10,000). The first known book on cards called Yezi Gexi was allegedly written by a Tang-era woman, and was commented on by Chinese writers of subsequent dynasties.ĭuring the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), characters from popular novels such as the Water Margin were widely featured on the faces of playing cards. The Song Dynasty (960–1279) scholar Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) asserted that playing cards and card games existed at least since the mid-Tang Dynasty and associated their invention with the simultaneous development of using sheets or pages instead of paper rolls as a writing medium. The first reference to the card game in world history dates no later than the 9th Century, when the Collection of Miscellanea at Duyang, written by Tang Dynasty writer Su E, described Princess Tongchang (daughter of Emperor Yizong of Tang) playing the “leaf game” in 868 with members of the Wei clan (the family of the princess’ husband). They were found in China as early as the 9th Century during the Tang Dynasty (618–907).
History of the Playing Cards – Source: WikipediaĮarly History Playing cards were invented in Ancient China.
