{"id":2897,"date":"2022-04-26T15:35:44","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T15:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=2897"},"modified":"2022-04-26T15:35:45","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T15:35:45","slug":"face-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=2897","title":{"rendered":"Face Cards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A while back, I mentioned here that I enjoyed playing games with our grandkids. Most of the card games we play use unique decks for a particular game, like Uno, Crazy 8, etc. But sometimes we play card games using a standard deck of cards. One of the times I was playing with Emily, she made the comment that \u201cface\u201d cards (I think she called them \u201cpicture\u201d cards) were really ugly.\u00a0
I told her that the \u201cpictures\u201d were drawings of real people \u2014 she was more skeptical than impressed and of course when she asked who, she wasn\u2019t familiar with any of the names, so she probably just put\u00a0 the information in the category of another one of Poppi\u2019s tales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But supposedly the face cards do represent real people. Playing cards were introduced in Europe in the early 1400s and face cards were initially composed of only Kings, Knights and \u201cknaves\u201d (now known as Jacks.) It wasn\u2019t until around 1440 that Queens made their introduction \u2014 first in Germany. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Anyhow, there\u2019s not total agreement, but most people in the know about these things believe today\u2019s face cards depict these people:
King of Spades \u2014 David (from the Bible, the King of Israel)
King of Clubs \u2014 Alexander the Great (King of Macedonia)
King of Diamonds \u2014 Julius Caesar (dictator of the Roman Republic)
King of Hearts \u2014 Charles the 1st (King and Holy Roman Emperor of Italy)
Queen of Spades \u2014 Pallas Athena (In Greek mythology, Athena was the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, just warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, arts and skill \u2014 whew!!)
Queen of Clubs \u2014\u00a0 Argine or Argea (One theory is that Argine is an anagram for \u201cregina,\u201d latin for \u201cQueen.\u201d Others think the Queen of Clubs\u00a0 represents Argea, the mythological mother of Argus)
Queen of Diamonds \u2014 Rachel (Another biblical figure, Rachel was the mother of both Benjamin and Joseph)
Queen of Hearts \u2014 Judith (the fictional heroine of The Book of Judith, from the Old Testament of the Eastern Orthodox Bible.)
Jack of Spades \u2014 Ogier the Dane (the son of the King of Denmark in 8th century.)
Jack of Clubs \u2014 Judas Maccabeus or<\/em> Lancelot (A never settled debate)
(Judas Maccabeus was a Jewish priest that is acclaimed as one of the greatest warriors in Jewish history. Sir Lancelot of the \u201cknights of the Roundtable\u201d and the most trusted of King Arthur\u2019s knights.)
Jack of Diamonds \u2014 Hector (A Trojan prince in Greek mythology, the greatest fighter for Troy in the Trojan War.)
Jack of Hearts \u2014 La Hire (\u00c9tienne de Vigolies, called La Hire was a French military commander during the Hundred Years\u2019 War.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re wondering why these people were chosen, it probably comes from the early origins of playing cards. The face cards we see today were developed in 16th century France when they pretty much took over the production of playing cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But no matter who, or even if, the face cards represent real people, playing cards have had some amount of influence in all our lives \u2014 we can\u2019t change the cards we are dealt, it\u2019s just how we play the hand. I remember my uncle used to say, trust everybody, but cut the cards\u2026..
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A while back, I mentioned here that I enjoyed playing games with our grandkids. Most of the card games we play use unique decks for a particular game, like Uno, Crazy 8, etc. But sometimes we play card games using … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2897"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2899,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2897\/revisions\/2899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}