Image Details

British Museum

The rules for playing this third-millennium B.C.E. game, found in the Royal Cemetery at Ur and now housed in the British Museum, are unknown. The board is 10 inches long and 5 inches wide and consists of 20 squares inlaid with shell, lapis lazuli, red paste and red limestone. Two sets of seven counters and three four-sided dice were found with the board. Similar game boards are known from the eastern Mediterranean to India; each board is arranged with four rows of three squares connected to two rows of three squares by a bridge of two squares.