Cinnabar

How to Play

Four phases · 90 minutes

Every claim needs evidence. Every sample has a cost.

The four phases

  1. 1

    Excavate

    Draw a Fragment card and its Context card. Place colour-trace tokens on the sculpture board.

  2. 2

    Analyse

    Spend Lab Time to run techniques. Each returns a data card — some decisive, some ambiguous.

  3. 3

    Interpret

    Match evidence to pigments. Ethics cards may forbid destructive sampling or demand consultation.

  4. 4

    Defend

    Present your reconstruction. Rival teams may challenge any claim not backed by two lines of evidence.

The Phrasikleia Kore object board, with its four zones and legal palette
The object board — every claim is pinned to a zone.

Sample lab data card

TechniqueReadingIndicatesSampling
XRFHg, SCinnabarNon-destructive
RamanBand 343 cm⁻¹CinnabarNon-destructive
VIL imagingInfrared glowEgyptian blueNon-destructive
Cross-sectionLayer sequenceAnyDestructive
The Malachite pigment card, showing its six analysis rows
A pigment card.
The pXRF and UV-Vis instrument sleeves, each with a cut-out window showing one row
Instrument sleeves — one window, one row.

Reassessment

A Reassessment card: Idealized proportion indicates a metropolitan workshop — retract the claim, minus two

Assumptions are free — until they are not. At Reassessment, every claim that rested on an assumption instead of evidence is retracted, and the team loses points. The game rewards what you can show, not what you believe.

Module A cards voice the discipline's historical shortcuts; Module B puts the object itself on trial before a chosen forum.