Bowls

Variants

• Bowling -- That is, bowling at pins / targets, as opposed to bocce-style games of rolling balls at other balls.
• Curling -- Basically a target-based version of Boules, played on ice. Popular in Scotland and related countries, and now enjoying a resurgence thanks to Olympic television coverage.

Reconstructions and Other Discussions

• History of Bocce at bocce.org (History) -- Via the Wayback Machine. (more)
• The World's Best Bocce Links Page (Links) -- (Self-declared as such.) A huge page, but very old; many links are defunct. (more)
• History of Boules and Petanque (History) -- From "la boule bleue", a French company making high-end boules sets. (more)
• Description of Modern Bocce (Modern Play) -- Interesting mainly to compare-and-contrast with the less-formal period game. (more)
• Dagonell's description of Boules (Reconstruction) -- (more)
• History of Bowls at Traditional Games (History) -- Much of this is post-period, but it's useful to understand how the family is related. (more)
• Bowls at the Virtual Museum (Reconstruction) -- Based on the Brueghel painting. (more)
• On the Origin and Diffusion of European Ball Games, a Linguistic Analysis (History) -- An academic paper on where the games came from (more)
• Games in *The Academy of Armory* (Transcription) -- Transcription by Justin du Coeur and Jeff Singman of the relevant sections from this 1688 book on heraldry, which happens to talk a lot about a lot of stuff. (more)
• Modar on Bocce (Reconstruction) -- (more)
• The History of Bocce (History) -- A concise one-pager outlining some of the history we know about. (more)