The Royal Game of Ur

The Game of Ur is a race game and it is probably a direct ancestor of the tables, or backgammon, family of games, which are still played today. The Game of Ur is played using two sets of seven checker-like game pieces. One set of pieces are white with five black dots and the other set is black with five white dots. The gameboard is composed of two rectangular sets of boxes, one containing three rows of four boxes each and the other containing three rows of two boxes each, joined together by a "narrow bridge" of two boxes.


The gameplay involves elements of both luck and strategy Movements are determined by rolling a set of four-sided, tetrahedron-shaped dice. Two of the four corners of each die are marked and the other two are not, giving each die an equal chance of landing with a marked or unmarked corner facing up. The number of marked ends facing upwards after a roll of the dice indicates how many spaces a player may move during that turn. A single game can last up to half an hour and can be very intense.