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The Royal Game of Ur
From Ur, southern Iraq, about 2600-2400 BC
One of the most popular games of the ancient
world
This game board is one of several with a similar layout found by
Leonard Woolley in the Royal Cemetery at Ur. The wood had decayed
but the inlay of shell, red limestone and lapis lazuli survived in
position so that the original shape could be restored. The board
has twenty squares made of shell: Five squares each have flower
rosettes, 'eyes', and circled dots. The remaining five squares have
various designs of five dots. According to references in ancient
documents, two players competed to race their pieces from one end
of the board to another. Pieces were allowed on to the board at the
beginning only with specific throws of the dice. We also know that
rosette spaces were lucky.
The gaming pieces for this particular board do not survive.
However, some sets of gaming pieces of inlaid shale and shell were
excavated at Ur with their boards. The boards appear to have been
hollow with the pieces stored inside. Dice, either stick dice or
tetrahedral in shape, were also found.
Examples of this 'Game of Twenty Squares' date from about 3000
BC to the first millennium AD and are found widely from the eastern
Mediterranean and Egypt to India. A version of the Mesopotamian
game survived within the Jewish community at Cochin, South India
until modern times.
You can play the Royal Game of Ur on-line at The British
Museum's Mesopotamia
website (requires Shockwave).
C.L. Woolley and P.R.S. Moorey, Ur of the Chaldees, revised edition (Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1982)
J. Neuberger, 'Visitor's choice', British Museum Magazine: th-13, 4 (Winter 1990), p. 26
C.L. Woolley and others, Ur Excavations, vol. II: The R (London, The British Museum Press, 1934)