The Royal Game of Ur

The Royal Game of Ur is the oldest known board game. It was excavated in the 1920s in the ancient city of Ur, which actually is the ancient city of Mesopotamia which is located in Iraq between Baghdad and the Persian Gulf. In this excavation two boards, along with pieces, were found. The game has also been called "The Game of Twenty Squares" but that is also a name for very similar games found widely from the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt to India.

Rules

There are few interpretations of the rules the following is a summary of the most common rules.

This game is a racing game. And it has some similarities to Ludo and backgammon. The goal is to introduce seven pawns, move them along your designated path and the first one to get all his pawns out of the game wins.

Pieces:

Each player has seven pawns and three pyramidal dice, each dice has two red and two white vertices.

Movement:

The movement follows certain points given after the dice are thrown, the movement can be seen on the illustration.

The movement points are:

- Three red vertices Give 5 points and allows another turn

- Three white vertices gives 4 points and allows another turn

- Two white vertices gives no points and the turn passes to the opponent

- One white vertex gives 1 point and the turn passes to the opponent

- For other outcomes there are usually no points, but in some versions 3 white vertices give

3 points, 2 give 2 points etc.

1. Dice are thrown, the player with the most points starts, if there is a draw throw again.

2. The game starts with an empty board and pawns can only be introduced with a throw of

5 or 4.

3. Rosette symbols and the starting and ending squares can only have one pawn with out. Also

possible rules that if a pawn lands on a Rosette square that player gets another turn.

4. If a pawn lands on a square where a opposing pawn is the opposing pawn is taken off the

board and has to start again. Or like in another version, vice versa, where the moving pawn

has to start again.

5. Only one pawn can be moved per throw. Number of squares moved per turn is determined

by the number of points thrown.

6. To get a pawn of the board the pawn has to reach the last square where it can leave the board on a throw of 4 or 5.

OR! The pawn can only exit the board by a exact trow. Depends on which rules are being played by, if players can get

points from 1 - 5 the later rule should apply.

7. The winner is the first player who gets all pawns of the board via the exit square.

History

Game Design Elements

The design of the game is pretty simple and straight forward. Even though there are a couple of sets of rules the main idea is the same: Present all pawns, go around get all pieces out.

In a way this game relies almost solely on chance it can offer a bit of strategy by presenting players with a choice on which pawns to move and when, when to present pawns and how you are going to play the game of chance, wether it is aggressive or passive.

In some rulesets, to land on a rosette square means you get another trow, which can be a little bit of a flaw, because if one player gets really lucky he can get a massive advantage on his opponent if he keeps throwing 4s, but it is still a part of the game.

Art

This board game gives the possibility of being very decorative, having big tiles to decorate. There are 5 specific rosette squares those are the only decorated pieces that have a function to it and they really stand out from the rest of the tiles. Since all the other tiles are decorated with patterns that look like rolls on a modern dice, showing 4 - 5 dots in different ways, all of the other tiles are decorated with dots but one of them stands out which is the final tile. The final tile is decorated with more dots and it is differentiated from the others to show that this is the goal.

Even though the game is called "The Royal Game of Ur" because it was found in the royal cemetery it has a sense of royalty in the whole look. The board it self is very wel designed, beautifully decorated with shells and stones and the pawns and dices are very delicate and are in perfect harmony with the board it self. Where the board is very square, the pawns are round and the dice triangular, introducing the foundation geometrical shapes.

The board it self is also very well designed and it is thought that the original boards had small compartments inside of them to keep all pawns and dices from getting lost.

References

"British Museum - The Royal Game of Ur". The British Museum. 02/02/10 <http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/t/the_royal_game_of_ur.aspx>.

"International World History Project". World History Project, USA. 02/02/10 <http://history-world.org/ur.htm>.

Masters, James. "The Online Guide to Traditional Games". 02/02/10 <http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Royal-Game-Ur.htm>.

Soubeyrand, Catherine. "The Royal Game of Ur". The Game Cabinet. 02/02/10 <http://www.gamecabinet.com/history/Ur.html>.

"The Rules of The Royal Game of Ur". Masters Games Ltd.. 02/02/10 <http://www.mastersgames.com/rules/royal-ur-rules.htm>.

Links

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/t/the_royal_game_of_ur.aspx

http://history-world.org/ur.htm

http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Royal-Game-Ur.htm

http://www.gamecabinet.com/history/Ur.htm

http://www.mastersgames.com/rules/royal-ur-rules.htm

The Royal Game of Ur gets its name from two boardgames which were found in the royal cemetery in the ancient city of Ur (hence the name). These boards were found by Sir Leonard Woolley during his excavations in the 1920s in Ur which is the ancient city of Mesopotamia. These boards are dated by The British Museum between 2600 and 2400 BC which makes this game one of, if not the oldest known board game.

The official Rules of the game are not known but a reliable reconstruction of the gameplay has been made based one a Babylonian cuneiform tablet from 177/176 BCE, and similar games have been found in many other places.

Another board was found more recently in the tomb of Queen Shub-ad, which is around 1000 kilometers from Ur. It has a simpler design with fewer rosettes.

The original boards that were found had no outer shell since it was made out of wood that had deteriorated away but all the squares were lined up so it could be reconstructed correctly.

There have been theories that the conventional way of playing the game was to place bets that you would win the game, and at some point in the game it was possible to raise the stakes.

Page updated

Report abuse