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Ancient Games: The Royal Game Of Ur

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Deciphering the Patterns of the Royal Game of Ur Board - Part 1

Source: ancient-origins.net
Date: 5 March, 2020

The world’s first known board game was found in Mesopotamia (c. 2600 BC). Despite this, Egyptian beliefs help us best to understand the Royal Game of Ur’s board design, rules and all. Especially the myth of Osiris and Isis.

A later version of the Royal Game of Ur board. The black enhancing outline added by author. Thebes, Egypt. c. 1635–1458 BC. ( The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund (1916) / Provided by the author)

Foreign Origin of the Game of Ur Board?

Board games similar to the Game of Ur were played through antiquity and have been found in several countries. The board’s top was elongated in the years that passed, so the central axis contained twelve squares instead of eight, but no side squares.

The particular object for this article, a board from the Royal Tombs of Ur in Sumer – or Mesopotamia, of which Sumer was an early southern part, is a first-generation board. Maybe even the ‘mother board’ of simpler copies from the same excavations, copies displaying other, clearly Mesopotamian motifs. These other motifs don’t give the same gut feeling that you get from the patterns on this famous board: that they are meaningful symbols placed with precise intent.

https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/game-ur-board-0013373


Should you remotely have understood, 'Part 1' - personally, I am none the wiser - Part 2, may be found here:

https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/oldest-board-game-0013375
 
"This symbol of Isis, as well as the djed pillar, are of very old ages."

. . . "of very old ages"? Odd phrasing. Who wrote this? Where is the editor who should have corrected this? More importantly, what did they do with the instruction booklet?
 
Don't worry it was this version:

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https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1602/royal-game-ur
 
Do you still have the instruction booklet? Or did you lose it like people usually do?
 
Do you still have the instruction booklet? Or did you lose it like people usually do?

I don't even know where the game is, it was still in my Grandad's house when he passed away a few years ago but I don't know where it ended up.
 
Update on the oldest board game in the world:
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/archaeologists-discover-4000-year-old-board-game-2060571

It's believed to be a precursor of the Royal Game of Ur. The photo of it isn't exactly as exciting, however. Pretty fabulous, nonetheless.
Archaeologists in Oman have found 4,000-year-old stone board game at a Bronze and Iron Age settlement site near the village of Ayn Bani Saidah in the northern Hajar mountains’ Qumayrah Valley.

“Such finds are rare, but examples are known from an area stretching from India, through Mesopotamia even to the Eastern Mediterranean,” Piotr Bielinski, a University of Warsaw archaeologist who co-led the excavations, said in a statement. “The most famous example of a game board based on a similar principle is the one from the graves from Ur,” an ancient royal cemetery in Iraq.
 
Irving Finkel: an expert who has done research into the game, and a charismatic speaker. I watched this video some months ago and I recommend it.


I enjoyed the video and the two players' enthusiasm was palpable.
The mechanics of the game itself though, whilst remarkable for their age, just struck me as a sort of dumbed-down Ludo or Backgammon.
I guess the appeal of the Royal Game of Ur is the sense of history and the picturesque recreation of the original board but, for a fun game, I'd far rather play Backgammon.

I have a similar feeling about the Viking game of Hnefetafl.
I have a set somewhere, very similar to this, with a roll-out linen "board" and nicely cast resin figures.
It works better as an ornament though than a game.
The attacking and defending pieces move like rooks in chess, but capturing is by sandwiching, a bit like Go.
Hnefetafl is far inferior to either though.

tafl.png
 
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When Hnefetafl viking pieces are knocked out of the game, they are reborn in the halls of Kalaha.
 
Tafl is a fascinating game; played in so many ways in many different places.

(I have that set too; though never played it; Im always alone)

Compare it to Chess; two equal players on an equal board.

The mindset is far different.
 
Tafl is a fascinating game; played in so many ways in many different places.

(I have that set too; though never played it; Im always alone)

Compare it to Chess; two equal players on an equal board.

The mindset is far different.

I had a browse through the Amazon Games store and saw there was a free version of Hnefatafl, so I thought I might as well give it a try.
It plays just the one most common variant - on an 11x11 board, King has to escape to a corner square and has to be surrounded on all 4 sides (or against a hostile square) to be captured. The AI difficulty levels 1 and 2 were ridiculously easy and I won as both Black and White, but from level 3 it does give you a reasonable game. If you have an Amazon Fire tablet, it's certainly worth downloading. Still don't rate the game as highly as Chess or Go, but I'm beginning to appreciate the strategy in there now.

tafl.png
tafl2.png


There's also a free app for the Game of Ur, but not sure I'll bother with that.

UR.png
 
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