"Exceedingly popular in Japan (where it is called Jan-Ken-Pon), Rock-Paper-Scissors is best known as Mora, a term derived from the Italian word for a very short beat in poetry. Italians have played Mora since at least 1706.
Actually the hand-extending guessing game is so very old that speaking of 'countries' is almost irrelevant. It arose on the Mediterranean coast and in the Orient. Egyptian hieroglyphic paintings dating to 2000 BC depict a finger-guessing game of the same sort as Scissor-Paper-Stone.
Roman children in Nero's day played a thing called Bucca, Bucca, Quot Sunt Hic?, another precursor. The modern-day version of that game, Buck Buck, has three players, one of whom is Master, another of whom is Frog and the last is Buck." -- Whiplash by Gay S. Gassair, Willamette Week, 5/24/95
Now you too can play Mora! With only a couple thousand dollars of computer equipment and a high speed connection to the web, you can have hours of fun! Be the Rock! Be the Paper! Keep in mind, that scissors weren't invented until a few hundred years ago, so play safely!
Ok now, 1, 2, 3.
Who do you want to be?
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Rock | Paper | Scissors |