The world's oldest board game: The Royal Game of Ur | Irving Finkel and Lex Fridman

Quick Overview

The Royal Game of Ur, discovered by Sir Leonard Woolley in the Royal Cemetery of Ur (2600–2400 BC) and found elsewhere in the Middle East, is a race game played with four two-sided dice (or astragali) that requires a mix of probability and strategy, similar to Backgammon, and its rules were successfully reconstructed from a cuneiform tablet dating to 177 BC found in Babylon.

Key Points: The Royal Game of Ur is an ancient race game played with 20 squares on the board, found in excavations by Sir Leonard Woolley at Ur between 1926 and 1934. The game's pieces moved along a specific track involving a central 'bridge' of two squares and four squares at each end, with two squares marked by rosettes serving as safe spots. Rules for the game were successfully reconstructed primarily from a cuneiform tablet (BM 33333B) dating to 177 BC, found in Babylon, which detailed the movement and dice throws. The game uses four two-sided dice, historically represented by astragali (sheep knucklebones), which feature markings on four of their sides. The game involves a mix of chance (dice rolls) and strategy, making it comparable to modern games like Backgammon, rather than pure strategy games like Chess. The game was extremely widespread across the ancient Middle East, with boards found in Egypt (Tutankhamun's tomb), Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Greece. The game's narrative structure, as revealed by the tablet, involves a competitive race where players might get angry, but the objective is to successfully get all pieces off the board.

Context: This video features an interview between Lex Fridman and Irving Finkel, a curator at the British Museum specializing in cuneiform tablets, discussing the Royal Game of Ur, one of the world's oldest known board games. The discussion centers on the game's historical discovery, its physical components (like the board and astragali dice), and how its rules were deciphered from ancient Mesopotamian texts, providing insight into ancient leisure activities.