Did you know...
the Royal Game of Ur, also known as the Game of Twenty Squares or simply the Game of Ur, is a two-player strategy race board game that was first played in ancient Mesopotamia during the early third millennium BC? The game was popular across the Middle East among people of all social strata, and boards for playing it have been found at locations as far away from Mesopotamia as Crete and Sri Lanka. At the height of its popularity, the game acquired spiritual significance, and events in the game were believed to reflect a player's future and convey messages from deities or other supernatural beings.
The Game of Ur remained popular until late antiquity, when it stopped being played, possibly evolving into, or being displaced by, an early form of backgammon. It was eventually forgotten everywhere except among the Jewish population of the Indian city of Kochi, who continued playing a version of it until the 1950s when they began emigrating to Israel.
The Game of Ur received its name because it was first rediscovered by the English archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley during his excavations of the Royal Cemetery at Ur between 1922 and 1934.
Copies of the game have since been found by other archaeologists across the Middle East.
The rules of an advanced version of the Game of Ur, as it was played in the second century BC, were preserved on a Babylonian clay tablet written by the scribe Itti-Marduk-balalu. Based on this tablet and the shape of the game board, British Museum curator Irving Finkel has, by inference, reconstructed the basic rules of how the game likely was played.
Like modern backgammon, the game combines elements of both strategy and random chance. A single game can last up to half an hour and can be very intense.
How to Play the Royal Game of UR
