Panchronia

The Royal Game of Ur

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c. 2600 BC · Ur, Sumer · Middle East · Culture

A board game people kept playing for 4,500 years

The Royal Game of Ur
Zzztriple2000 · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Leonard Woolley found boards for this 20-square game in the Royal Cemetery of Ur; they are some 4,500 years old. Its rules were rebuilt from a Babylonian tablet, and the game survived among the Jews of Kochi, India, until they emigrated to Israel in the 1950s.

State: Sumerian City-States

Did you know

A board game invented in Mesopotamia 4,500 years ago was still played in the mid-20th century. Forgotten everywhere else, it survived among the Jews of Kochi, India, until they left for Israel in the 1950s. Share →

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Alive at the time