Royal Game of Ur

The Royal Game of Ur refers to two game boards found in Royal Tombs of Ur by Sir Leonard Wooley in 1920s. The two boards date from the First Dynasty of Ur, before 2600 BC, thus making the Royal Game of Ur probably the oldest set of gaming equipment ever found. One of the two boards is exhibited in the collections of the British Museum in London.

The game was played with two sets (black and white) of seven checkers and three pyramidal dice. The rules of the game as it was played in Mesopotamia are not known but there is a reliable reconstruction of gameplay based on cuneiform tablet of Babylonian origin dating from 177-176 BC. It is universally agreed that the Royal Game of Ur is a race game, which indicates that it may be one of the predecessors to the present-day backgammon.