Combining the Six Worthies and The Three Homing Stars are both examples of Chinese lock puzzles. According to The Collections of Ehuan Tricks, Combing the Six Worthies was a literary name given by scholars to describe the puzzle’s six pieces. It was nicknamed the Six Knots by the general public because solving the puzzle racked one’s brains.

 

Combining the Six Worthies has also been known as the Lu Ban lock, named after Lu Ban, the father of carpentry in ancient China. The game was used by carpentry apprentices to practice carving mortise and tenon joints which would be used to join pieces of furniture and other works. 

 

Combining the Six Worthies is a three-axis puzzle that supports various combinations. The most common combination is locking three pairs of pieces together on three different axes. The game has been analyzed with a computer, and it was found that there are at least 369 components that can be arranged to form 120,000 combinations, which is truly remarkable.

 

 

National Digital Archives Program—UEPlay Digital Museum -Intellectual Games