Found in a royal tomb in the city of Ur, in Iraq, this game is about 4,500 years old: the oldest board game we still know how to play! These are the rules worked out by Irving Finkel of the British Museum from an ancient clay tablet.
HOW TO PLAY
Each player has 7 pieces. Race them all along your path and off the end of the board. You are white and travel along the bottom row, through the middle and back.
Throw the four pyramid dice. Count the dice that land with their white tip up: that’s how far you move (0 to 4). A 0 means no move.
Land on a rosette 🌸 to throw again. A piece on the middle rosette is safe from capture.
In the middle row, land on a rival piece to knock it off: it goes back to the start.
You can’t land on your own piece. To leave the board you need the exact number.