Royal Game of Ur

The Royal Table of Ur, otherwise known as the Royal Game of Ur, is what can be considered in all
respects the oldest game in the world whose rules, although posthumous, have come down to us.
The best known example, and
reproduced by us, is the one
preserved in the British Museum,
extracted in the archaeological
excavation of 1926 - 1927 by Sir
Leonard Woolley from the royal
tombs of the Sumerian city-state of
Ur (in present-day Iraq), from
which it takes its name. This find is
dated to around 2500 BC and for
this reason many would say that
the Egyptian Senet is much older,
however in Shahr-i Sokhta (in
Iran) non-intact examples dating
back to 3200 BC have recently
been found, as well as fragments
that are probably even older and,
Royal Table of Ur, complete game set with cuneiform tablet showing the rules.
consequently, its origins are also British Museum, London.
shrouded in mystery.
The rarity of the find was its completeness: Woolley and his team, in fact, found three game boards with
seven white tokens, seven black tokens and six pyramidal dice. All three specimens have different
decorations on the game board apart from the always identical repetition of the boxes with the “rosette”,
it can be deduced that the various symbols may have no meaning in the game or, more likely, that they
had one that has been lost.
The wonder of these finds is undoubtedly aroused by the quality of the inlays: shells, carnelian and lapis
lazuli decorate the wooden board, while the black slate tokens are inlaid with mother-of-pearl and the
white ones with lapis lazuli. The dice also have a mother-of-pearl inlay on two of the four vertices.
But, the most spectacular thing, is that unlike almost all the other games of that era, for the Royal Game
of Ur we have instructions!
 It seems incredible, but in 1880 in
Iraq a pair of cuneiform tablets
from 177-176 BC were found,
written by the Babylonian scribe
Itti-Marduk-Balatu where he tells
the philosophy of the game,
describes the complete game set
and mentions some moves. The
tablets remained an unsolved
One of two cuneiform tablets inscribed with the rules of the Royal Game of Ur, front and back mystery for historians and
Photo: British Museum
archaeologists until it was possible
to translate the cuneiform and,
therefore, decipher it. They too are kept in the British Museum, where over time they have changed
location, going to stand proudly next to the game sets.
Of course, the discrepancy in time between the dating of the oldest relic of the game and that of its
instructions is large and suggests that the rules evolved over those two or three millennia, however it also
gives us a measure of how popular this game and its heirs were (from the Egyptian Aseb to the game of
the twenty squares of Jiroft, etc.) and how long-lived it itself was.
Ultimately, the Royal Backgammon of Ur proposes a path game for two players with a narrow passage
in which the pieces move on common squares and in which the two players will not exclude shots to
eliminate the opponent's tiles and make them start again from the beginning while they proceed to make
their own tiles come out safe and sound.
For countless years, game makers and scholars have been working to understand reliable game mechanics,
the most reliable were for a long time those extrapolated by R. C. Bell, until Irving Finkel, curator of the
Mesopotamian area of the British Museum, translated the tablets into cuneiform, finally clarifying the
situation.
Even the Russian Dmitriy Skiryuk, scholar and passionate creator of board games, has made his own
reconstruction, also giving each box a precise meaning, however he does not seem to have taken into
account the plurality of findings and the diversity of the decorations of the game boards.

PURPOSE OF THE GAME

The aim of the game is to have all seven of your pieces complete the path while preventing your opponent
from doing the same.

GAME’S RULES
For the rules of the game we rely on the reconstruction made by Professor Finkel as it is more
philological, it is also possible to see them in practice in a video on YouTube, where the good professor
challenges a famous English YouTuber and boardgamer.
However, it is also true that the version considered most reliable for a long time was that of Richard C.
Bell, so we will also present his version of the game later.

Rules extrapolated from Finkel

1. The game begins with an empty board, each
player keeps their own pieces in front of
them, those that have been brought to safety
at the end of the path will be placed at the
top of the board, see example in figure 1.
2. The player who starts the game is
determined by a roll of the dice, typically the
player with the highest roll starts..
3. The players will take turns rolling the four
dice and counting the white vertices Figure 1 Example of positioning of the pieces during the game

resulting from the roll. Based on the result,

they can decide whether to put a pawn into play or advance a pawn already in play by the same
number of spaces.
4. If the dice roll results in only black vertices, the player passes the turn to the opponent without
making any move.
5. The entry of a new token occurs in motion, so if the dice roll shows a three, for example, the
token will be positioned on the third square from the beginning of the path, if a two has been
rolled on the second, etc.
6. The path to take is the one shown in
figure 2.
7. It is not possible to place multiple
tokens on the same space. If it is
not possible to put a new token into
play or move another one already
on the board, the player must pass
the turn with nothing done.
8. While advancing, it is possible to
jump over the pieces present on the
path, your own or your opponent's, Figure 2 Diagram of the path that the two players' pieces must take
even if more than one.
9. If the piece ends its movement on a square occupied by an opponent's piece, the latter is
eliminated from the game and must start again from the beginning of the path.
10. If the pawn ends its movement on a square marked with a rosette, the player has the right to re-
roll the dice.
11. If the pawn ends its
movement on a square
marked with a rosette but
this is occupied by an
opponent's pawn, the
player must place his own
pawn in the immediately
following square unless he
can avoid this by using
another pawn as shown
here alongside.
12. 12. To exit the board and
save your tokens, you need to make an exact throw. If you end up moving in the last square of
the path, marked with a rosette, you can re-roll the dice, but you need to make an exact throw
worth 1 point to be able to remove that token.
13. The first player to save all seven of their pieces wins..

Rules by Robert C. Bell

Before the rules extrapolated by Irving Finkel from the study and translation of the Itti-Marduk-
Balatu cuneiform tablets, the most accredited set of rules as a game mechanic was that of Robert C.
Bell, a board game historian, so we want to propose it as a set of rules in its own right, rather than as
a variant.
For this set of rules, 3 dice are used instead of 4, the number of white vertices that result from the
roll of the dice determines the following:

• Three white vertices. With this result, one of the following options is possible, at the player's
choice::
o Enter a new piece into play and make a new dice roll;
o Advance five positions with a piece already in play;
• Three black vertices. This result allows the player to advance with only one piece already in play
by four spaces and reroll the dice;
• Two white vertices. The player who obtains this result has the right to advance with only one
piece already in play by one space and to reroll the dice;
• Only one white vertex. The player passes the turn without moving and without rerolling the dice.

1. The game begins with an empty board and before starting the players decide:
a. The value of the stake payable;
b. Whoever of the two starts, possibly with a roll of the dice (and whoever gets the highest
score starts) or by an agreed choice.
2. The players take turns shooting and moving according to the scheme shown above, the path to
be observed is the same as illustrated in figure 2.
3. Each player has only one move per turn, so after re-rolling the dice where applicable and making
your move, the turn passes to your opponent.
4. At each throw, only one piece can be moved at a time (if the dice roll allows it), so it is not
possible to divide the result between multiple pieces to make them advance at the same time.
 5. To put a piece into play, you must make the first throw indicated in the diagram, obtaining three
white vertices. Until this result is obtained for the first piece into play, the turn passes to the
opponent with nothing done.
6. After placing the first token, every time the dice roll results in three white vertices, the player can
choose whether to advance a token already in play or place another one.
7. When you place a token, it is always placed on the first square and the dice are re-rolled to move
it the number of squares indicated by the second throw. If this second throw results in only one
white vertex, i.e. no movement, the token is withdrawn from the game.
8. If a piece ends its run on a square marked with a rosette, the opponent pays the stake
determined in point 1 to the bank.
9. During the movement it is possible to jump over the pieces, your own or others, it is
not possible to execute the movement if it ends in a square occupied by one of your pieces and
it is necessary to move another. If, however, it ends in a square occupied by an opponent's piece,
the latter is put out of play and must start again from the beginning.
10. It is never possible to give up your own move, unless the player is unable to execute any
movement, in which case he passes the turn without re-throwing.
11. To remove the pieces from the board it is necessary to make an exact throw, if it is not possible
to remove the piece you must move another one or, if this is not possible, pass the turn to the
opponent without re-throwing as per point 10.
12. The first player to get all seven of their pieces out wins, in which case they win the entire
stake accumulated during the game by moving to the squares with the rosette..

GAME’S VARIATIONS

Over the years there have been many studies both on the game and its mechanics, and on the cuneiform
tablets found and translated by Finkel.
We propose here some variants, applicable indiscriminately to both sets of proposed rules.

• 16-box variant.
This variant offers an alternative path that makes the battlefield more interesting and larger. Below is
the movement scheme for the 16-box variant.
For the rest, the rules to be adopted are the same as the set chosen to play.
• Extended variant.
1. The path is lengthened as shown in the figure here, note that the entry and exit boxes of the
pawns also change..

2. Once the token begins the reverse path, it must be turned upside down to avoid confusion.
3. The pieces can only "eat" each other if they have the same face (recto or verso), a piece with
all five points visible cannot make an opponent's piece turn upside down exit the game.
4. In this variant, the pieces can rest on the same square under these conditions:
a. Own pieces can have either the same or different faces.
b. Both players can have their tokens on the same side, even in a stack, as long as they have
two different faces (one player's face is on the front and the other players' face is on the
back).
c. If a piece lands in this square, all opposing pieces with the same face are taken out of play
and must start over again.
5. You can exit the board with any score that can take your token off the board..
6. By the Bell rules
a. It is also permitted to introduce new tokens into play with a dice roll that shows two white
vertices (= 1 point).
b. The squares marked with a rosette are considered neutral and safe territory. It is possible
for opposing pieces with the same face to coexist in them (for example, two white pieces
and one black piece, all with visible dots).
 • Other variants.
Some experts propose some interesting exit variants to liven up the game, to be used
alternatively, even in the 16-box variants and in the extended variant as an alternative to the
5-point rule.

1. In both sets of rules you can use the bounce rule, that is, if the only piece that can move
is the one that is about to exit, instead of passing the turn it will proceed as many spaces
as necessary for the exit and then go back for the rest of the score obtained. For example:
when you roll the dice you get three white vertices.

a. Finkel's rules, any variation.

With this set of rules the player can move three spaces, but the pieces are already
all in play or have already finished, so no new ones can be inserted. The pieces in
play cannot move because they would end up against one of their own pieces and
the one about to leave needs an exact 1-point roll to leave. In this case, instead of
passing the turn, the player moves this last piece forward one space and back two.

b. Bell's Rules, any variation.

With this set of rules, the player can move a piece forward five spaces or insert a
new piece. With this variant, in the event that no new pieces can be inserted into
play and the others already in play cannot move because they would end up in a
space already occupied by a piece of the same player, the only piece that can move
is the one about to exit, but to do so it requires an exact one-point throw. In this
case, this piece advances one and goes back four spaces.
c. In the extended variant, where there is the possibility of stacking multiple pieces
in the same square, this rule will have a greater application only for the exit
movement of the last piece, but this does not exclude the possibility of a…
strategic move.

2. For Bell's rules alone, one can alternatively consider a valid outcome variant only if a four-
point roll comes out, i.e. the dice roll returns all black vertices.

THE ADVICE OF THE DODO

Don't consider the Royal Backgammon of Ur a game of dice based solely on luck. It involves a lot of
strategy in choosing which moves to make and which pieces to use. Considering that the most likely
scores that can come out by rolling the four pyramid dice are 2 and 3 (to be precise 6/16 for the two and
2/16 for the three), a good game strategy is to try to stay as far away as possible from the opponent's
pieces, at least 4 or 5 squares (whose probability of coming out is, for the 4, only 1/16).
 If you play with Finkel's rules, staying still in
the central square with the rosette (indicated
in the figure alongside) could be a good
strategy to put pressure on your opponent,
who will be forced to jump over you and
become vulnerable to your subsequent
moves.
If you play with Bell's rules, the main advice is only one: do not mortgage the nest!
In case you want to apply the elongated variant, the dodo advises the owner of the game to personalize
one of the two sets of tokens, for example by applying a piece of paper tape or making a mark with a
marker or something else, since the tokens provided have the same back.