A board game invented in Mesopotamia 4,500 years ago was still played in the mid-20th century.

2600 BC · 1950 · apart: 4550 years

Forgotten everywhere else, it survived among the Jews of Kochi, India, until they left for Israel in the 1950s.

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The event

• The Royal Game of Urc. 2600 BC · Ur, Sumer. 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.

26th century BC · 20th century

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