The Royal Game of Ur is a 4500-year-old race game from ancient Mesopotamia, recovered intact from the royal tombs at Ur (modern Iraq) by Leonard Woolley in the 1920s. Rules were translated from a 177 BCE Babylonian clay tablet by Irving Finkel of the British Museum in 1981 — the longest unbroken span of any known board game whose rules survive.
Two players, 7 pieces each. Cast 4 binary throwsticks (or roll 4 coins) — count "1"s for your move. Race pieces along an asymmetric 20-square track from entry to exit. Land on rosette squares for safety and an extra turn; land on a single enemy piece (off rosette) to send it back to start. First to bear off all 7 pieces wins.
Irving Finkel of the British Museum translated a Babylonian rules tablet (BM 33333) in 1981. Earlier scholars had reconstructed the board from tomb finds but didn't have the rules until Finkel's translation.
Same family but the Ur track is asymmetric (some squares only one player can enter), and rosette squares grant safety AND extra turns. Ur predates Backgammon by ~2500 years.
Four bicolored sticks with one black and one white face. Count the white faces showing — 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 — as your move. Yields a non-uniform distribution centered on 2 (most likely).
20–30 minutes. Quicker than Backgammon, longer than Mancala.
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