Royal Game of Ur

The Royal Game of Ur, also known as the Game of Twenty Squares, dates back to ancient Mesopotamia, with the most famous archeological examples recovered from the Royal Cemetery of Ur in modern-day Iraq during the 1920s. Excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley, these ornate boards were discovered within Sumerian tombs dating to approximately 2600 BCE. They are considered one of the oldest board games in human history, serving as both a recreational pastime for the elite and a potential tool for divination in early Mesopotamian culture.

The design of the boards is highly distinctive, characterized by a set of twenty squares arranged in a specific cruciform pattern and inlaid with elaborate materials like shell, lapis lazuli, and red limestone. While the original rules were lost for millennia, they were eventually reconstructed by Irving Finkel of the British Museum using a cuneiform clay tablet that described the game's mechanics. The rediscovery of these boards has provided historians with a tangible link to the social and leisure lives of the people living in the cradle of civilization.