Royal Game of Ur

The Royal Game of Ur is one of the oldest board games with reconstructed rules, played in ancient Mesopotamia from around 2600 BCE. It was rediscovered in the 1920s when Sir Leonard Woolley excavated the Royal Cemetery of Ur; a Babylonian cuneiform tablet from c.177 BCE preserved the rules. Two players race seven pieces along a 20-square board, using four tetrahedral dice — a distant ancestor of backgammon.