This gaming piece shows a bearded man riding a griffin, carrying a hawk on his left wrist and holding a cloth in his right hand. The border is decorated with stylized foliate ornament. Round gaming pieces such as this one almost certainly belonged to sets of 'tablemen'. The game of tables, or backgammon was popular in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, draughts only becoming established in the later Middle Ages. There were fifteen counters to each side, and twelfth-century boards inlaid with bone settings have been excavated at Gloucester and Saint- Denis. Only one full set with two sides of fifteen counters and a board, that at Gloucester, still exists, but it is clear that a great variety of subjects was carved on the discs, ranging from single animals to scenes from classical mythology.