game | puzzle: The Fortress Besieged or The Powder Tower: New Domino Play for Social Entertainment

The Fortress Besieged or the Powder Tower: New Domino Play for Social Entertainment is an early German-made toy or game, given as a gift in 1851. Inside the box, a diagram shows how the many jigsawed pieces are to be assembled, with lines of soldiers on the outer border, followed by lines of cannons, earth fortifications, more cannons and soldiers, and finally a ring of small towers surrounding the central tower cut into an octagonal shape. It is unknown whether there was a gaming aspect to the assembly. The smaller pieces have numbers, so this may have applied to a game. It is also possible that the fun of the plaything was simply assembling it.