Avedon Games

Games like dominoes have a long and interesting history, as chronicled at the Elliott Avedon Virtual Museum of Games.

The Elliott Avedon Museum and Archive of Games was a Canadian museum of games and game-related objects from around the world, established in 1971. The museum closed in 2009, and in 2010 the collection was transferred to the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

History

The University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, established the Museum and Archive of Games in 1971 dedicated to the study, collection, preservation and public exhibition of game and game-related objects from all around in the world. The museum closed in 2009, and its collection went to the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec.

Website

Beginning in 1993, the university set up a website based on the materials in the collection, and continues to host more than 700 articles, videos and images based on the collection.

The Collection

The collection contains a wide range of games, from primitive wooden board games such as ancient Egyptian Senet, chess and backgammon, to popular modern board games, as well as video, arcade and electronic games. Besides physical games on display, the collection also contains a wide range of documents and papers and video clips on topics like game diffusion, ethnology and game origins.

Curator

The original founder and curator of the museum, Elliott Avedon, retired in 1995, and in 2000, the museum was renamed in his honor. As of January 2011, the collection is housed at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, where it has not yet been put on display.

References

• The University of Waterloo: Elliott Avedon Museum and Archive of Games
• News Release: University of Waterloo game collection finds a new home at the Canadian Museum of Civilization

Resources

• The Canadian Museum of Civilization