Face card

In a deck of playing cards, the term face card is generally used to describe a card that depicts a person as opposed to the pip cards. They are also known as court cards, picture cards, or until the early 20th century, coat cards.

While playing cards were invented in China, Chinese playing cards do not have a concept of face cards. When playing cards arrived in Iran, the Persians created the first face cards. In their Ganjifeh decks, each suit had ten pip cards that are outranked by a mounted vizier and a seated king. Cards were transmitted further west where Mamluk Egypt created a third court card. The best preserved deck is located in the Topkapı Palace. To avoid idolatry, the cards did not depict human faces and instead featured abstract designs or calligraphy for the malik (king), nā'ib malik (viceroy or deputy king) and thānī nā'ib (second or under-deputy). It is possible that the Topkapı deck, a custom made luxury item used for display, does not represent the cards played by commoners. There are fragments of what may be Mamluk court cards from cheaper decks showing human figures which may explain why seated kings and mounted men appear in both Indo-Persian and European cards. Both Mamluk and modern European decks include three face cards per suit, or twelve face cards in a deck of four suits.

The third court card may have had a special role to play since the Spanish, French, and Italians called the newly introduced cards naipe, nahipi, and naibi respectively as opposed to their Arabic name of Kanjifah. In a 1377 description of cards, the most common decks were structurally the same as the modern 52-card deck. Each suit contained a seated king and two marshals, one holding the suit symbol upwards while the other downwards. The marshals correspond to the Ober and Unter ranks in modern-day German and Swiss playing cards. As marshals were cavalry commanders, both ranks may have been mounted unlike their modern counterparts. Less popular decks included ones in which two kings were replaced with queens, all the kings replaced by queens, queens and maids added so as to make 15 cards per suit, and 5 or 6 suited decks with only the kings and two marshal ranks.

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