The Royal Game of Ur, or Game of Twenty Squares was played with a set of pawns on a richly decorated board and dates from about 3000 BCE.British Museum, URL It was a race game which employed a set of knucklebone dice. This game was also known and played in Egypt. A Babylonian treatise on the game written on  clay tablet shows that the game had astronomical significance and that it could also be used to tell one's fortune.Green, William; Big Game Hunter URL The Ur game was also popular with the lower classes, as attested by a 2,700-year-old graffiti version of the game, scratched onto a gateway to a palace in Khorsabad. Similar games have been found in Iran, Crete, Cyprus, Sri Lanka  and Syria. Excavations at Shahr-e Sukhteh ("The Burnt City") in Iran have shown that the game also existed there around 3000 BCE. The artefacts include two dice and 60 checkers. Games such as Nard and the Roman game Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum (game of 12 points, also known as simply "dice", lat. "alea") may have developed from this Iranian game. The Byzantine game Tabula is a descendant of the game of twelve points. Among the earliest examples of a board game is senet, a game found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burial sites in Egypt (circa 3500 BCE and 3100 BCE, respectively) and in hieroglyphs dating to around 3100 BCE.Piccaione, Peter A. In Search of the Meaning of Senet The game was played by moving draughtsmen on a board of 30 squares arranged into three parallel rows of ten squares each. The players strategically moved their pieces based on the throw of sticks or bones. The goal was to reach the edge of the board first. Senet slowly evolved over time to reflect the religious beliefs of the Egyptians. The pieces represented human souls and their movement was based on the journey of the soul in the afterlife. Each square had a distinct religious significance, with the final square being associated with the union of the soul with the sun god Re-Horakhty. Senet may have also been used in a ritual religious context. The Romans played a derivation of ' petteia' called 'latrunculi' or Ludus latrunculorum (the soldiers' game or the bandits' game). It is first mentioned by Varro (116–27 BCE) and alluded to by Martial and Ovid. This game was extremely popular and was spread throughout Europe by the Romans. Boards have been found as far as Roman Britain. It was a war game for two players and included moving around counters representing soldiers, the object being to get one of the adversary's pieces between two of one's own.Schädler, Ulrich; Latrunculi, A forgotten Roman game of strategy reconstructed; in Homo Ludens. Der spielende Mensch IV, 1994, 47-66.
The Royal Game of Ur, or Game of Twenty Squares was played with a set of pawns on a richly decorated board and dates from about 3000 BCE.British Museum, URL It was a race game which employed a set of knucklebone dice. This game was also known and played in Egypt. A Babylonian treatise on the game written on a clay tablet shows that the game had astronomical significance and that it could also be used to tell one's fortune.Green, William; Big Game Hunter URL The Ur game was also popular with the lower classes, as attested by a 2,700-year-old graffiti version of the game, scratched onto a gateway to a palace in Khorsabad. Similar games have been found in Iran, Crete, Cyprus, Sri Lanka , and Syria. Excavations at Shahr-e Sukhteh ("The Burnt City") in Iran have shown that the game also existed there around 3000 BCE. The artifacts include two dice and 60 checkers. Games such as Nard and the Roman game Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum (game of 12 points, also known as simply "dice", lat. "alea") may have developed from this Iranian game. The Byzantine game Tabula is a descendant of the game of twelve points. Among the earliest examples of a board game is senet, a game found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burial sites in Egypt (circa 3500 BCE and 3100 BCE, respectively) and in hieroglyphs dating to around 3100 BCE.Piccaione, Peter A. In Search of the Meaning of Senet The game was played by moving draughtsmen on a board of 30 squares arranged into three parallel rows of ten squares each. The players strategically moved their pieces based on the throw of sticks or bones. The goal was to reach the edge of the board first. Senet slowly evolved to reflect the religious beliefs of the Egyptians. The pieces represented human souls and their movement was based on the journey of the soul in the afterlife. Each square had a distinct religious significance, with the final square being associated with the union of the soul with the sun god Re-Horakhty. Senet may have also been used in a ritual religious context. The Romans played a derivation of ' petting called 'latrunculin or Ludus latrunculorum (the soldiers' game or the bandits' game). It is first mentioned by Varro (116–27 BCE) and alluded to by Martial and Ovid. This game was extremely popular and was spread throughout Europe by the Romans. Boards have been found as far as Roman Britain. It was a war game for two players and included moving around counters representing soldiers, the object being to get one of the adversary's pieces between two of one's own.Schädler, Ulrich; Latrunculi, A forgotten Roman game of strategy reconstructed; in Homo Ludens. Der spielende Mensch IV, 1994, 47-66.
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artefacts
artifacts
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over time
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petteia' called 'latrunculi'
petting called 'latrunculin