NEW YORK, NY.- Apart from physical team sports, card games are one of our oldest forms of gaming. They are thought to have existed in some form at least as far back as the ninth century CE when the Chinese are believed to have played something called The Game of Leaves.

Like many other activities, the evolution of card games is related to the development of technology. Cards as we know them could not appear until paper-making was invented, though one may speculate as to whether primitive prototype card games were once played with scraps of cloth, pieces of wood or even leaves. But cards as vehicles for art or design could not appear before the 13th century in Europe when the first paper mills were established, and indeed the first references to card games in European accounts appear in the late fourteenth century.

The Saracen's game
These references, all from around 1370 onward, speak of the sudden arrival of a Moorish or Saracen game which makes it seem likely that cards were brought back from the Middle East along with silks and spices on well-established trade routes to Italy and southern Spain. The cards are described as being "painted and gilded" in "gold and various colors" and were almost certainly hand-painted works of art for the nobility rather than mass-produced items intended for widespread game playing.

The Turfan card
It seems likely that card games and the associated artwork also began in the east, and gradually spread westward. The oldest existing playing card is Chinese and is known as the Turfan card, as it was found by Dr. Albert Von Le Coq in Chinese Turkistan, in 1905. Originally believed to date from the 11th century, it is now thought more likely to belong to the 13th or 14th century. Long and narrow, it features an almost cartoonish illustration of a smiling human figure, possibly intended to represent the character of Wang Ying from the ancient Chinese saga The Water Margin.



The Mamluk deck
In 1939 the archeologist L A Mayer found a nearly complete (48 of 52) set of 15th-century playing cards in the Topkapi Sarayi Museum in Istanbul. They became known as the Mamluk Deck because of their probable origin during the latter part of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt (1250-1517). The cards have several features characteristic of Islamic art: ornate and highly decorative, the cards incorporate abstract, geometric patterns but refrain from showing human figures as that would constitute idolatry.

Nevertheless, the Mamluk deck is a clear ancestor of our modern playing cards, as it divided into four suits each featuring ten number cards and three court cards. The court cards are represented as a king, a viceroy and an under-viceroy, while the suits are swords, polo sticks, cups, and coins. These suits are almost identical to those of modern tarot cards, the only change being polo cards to wands.

European evolution
It is believed that decks of cards much like these made their way into Europe, where they seemed to appear fully formed almost overnight. Swords, for instance, would resemble curved Arabic scimitars in European packs for some time. Polo, a favorite game amongst Muslim nobility, was virtually unknown in Europe at the time so the polo sticks became batons, wands or clubs. The design of the cards would also be simplified over the years, becoming less Arabic and more figurative in style. The king would remain, but the viceroys would be replaced with the queen, the knight or the jack.

The first European-made cards would again have been hand-painted one-off decks that were commissioned by wealthy families from artists as conversation pieces or status symbols. That said, card games were already popular enough by 1377 to be banned on workdays by Parisian law, and their association with drunkenness, gambling and sloth caused cards to be branded "the devil's picture book" by clergy across Europe.

The first pips
Some believe that the standard suits, or pips, were developed in France to correspond to the different strata of medieval society: clubs for the peasantry, diamonds for the merchants, spades (the Italian word for sword) for the warrior nobility and hearts for the clergy. That may have been the case, but for centuries there remained a great variance of pips in use across Europe, with regional variations compounded by designs being commissioned by the aristocracy to suit their personal or vested interests.

Earlier Swiss-German decks used roses, bells, acorns and shields: the roses became hearts, and the shields became leaves, before the French simplified the bells to become diamonds and leaves to clovers- a design almost identical to today's clubs. The shape of the acorn, resembling the head of a pike, was similarly stylized to represent the spade/sword of the Italian deck.

The modern standard
Different regions of France produced different styles of pattern, but it was the Rouen pattern that was the model for the classic English deck. As adapted by Charles Goodall and sons, it remains the basis of today's modern deck of cards.

The reverse sides of cards remained plain for nearly 500 years, until Thomas De La Rue & Company, a British printer, added lithographic designs of dots and stars in the early 19th century. As plain backs could be accidentally "marked" with smudges and creases, that was an advantage to serious card players. So too was the addition of corner indices, giving the value of a card at a glance and meaning players could hold their cards tightly fanned while weighing up their options. That innovation was patented during the American Civil War.

Today the game of cards still follows technology and has migrated online. Here cards are digitally represented, and their image can be augmented and manipulated in many ways, even becoming animated in games of online blackjack. Meanwhile, modern artists continue to create their variations on "the devil's picture book", proving that as well as having the best tunes he may have the best artwork as well.

• Card games came from China and the Middle East
• The original suits and court cards were of Arabic design
• Card designs were commissioned by wealthy European families
• The modern deck of cards is of French design
• Cards continue to evolve with modern digital technology