Backgammon in its various versions, has existed for at least 6000 years and has the longest recorded history of any board game. The popularity of the game in western Europe in the twelfth century may have been a result of contact with the East where it was very popular. This playing piece was almost certainly produced in a Cologne workshop which specialised in the production of tablemen in the second half of the 12th century and exhibits the distinctive zigzag borders with inserted beads. The figure shown is undoubtedly the personification of Ophiuchus, or Serpentarius, the 13th of the zodiacal constellations (formerly wrongly identified as Hercules fighting a snake). This naked figure is depicted grappling with a large snake in very similar manner in a number of early medieval astrological manuscripts, from the celebrated Carolingian Leiden Ararea onwards through to the 12th and 13th centuries, and it is likely that such an image served as model.
It is possible therefore that the piece belonged to a set devoted mostly to the signs of the zodiac, and that the opposing side might have been made up of pieces showing the labours of the months and other related images.