What is the association of the 4 playing card suits and the Mamluks?
score:3
Wikipedia suggests that the cup might be derived from seeing the Chinese character 万 (ten thousand)* upside down, which is certainly possible with playing cards.
If we follow that logic, 十 (ten) as used in this wp article (e.g. in the table roughly in the middle of that article) would be a good candidate for crosses or maybe a single sword or crossed swords, while coin (or 钱 in that wp article) would be the basic unit.
This leaves one of the symbols unexplained, but given that Chinese playing cards usually also consist of four sets of cards, and that different characters were used to mark these sets (e.g. the 万/萬 thing mentioned above) I suspect that fourth symbol might also be derived from a Chinese character. E.g. 交 would be a good candidate for crossed polo sticks and is mentioned in this article, but the mention is quite short and inconclusive and it is unclear if 交 and 十 would have appeared together in the same card deck (as in 钱 and 万) or if one would have replaced the other (as in 万 and 萬).
This is of course quite a bit of speculation and it is possible these symbols on Mamluk playing cards have a very different origin.
*before the character reform of the 1950s, 萬 would actually have been the more "correct" character for that word. But according to other internet sources, 万 has also already been used for the same word since antiquity.
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