Royal game of Ur

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Royal Game of Ur in the British Museum , London
Khorsabad carving in the British Museum
The playing fields of the king game. From the right or left yard, the path first runs vertically downwards, over the central axis upwards and then back vertically to the respective yard

The Royal Game of Ur is a board game , the origins of which are believed to be in Mesopotamia .

history

During excavations in the royal cemetery of the Sumerian city ​​of Ur in what is now (southern) Iraq , the British archaeologist Sir Charles Leonard Woolley found several boards of the same appearance in the 1920s. These were dated to approx. 2600 BC. One of the game boards is on display in the British Museum in London .

There is also the limestone gate of a palace in Dur Šarrukin , a former seat of the Assyrian Empire , now near the northern Iraqi city of Khorsabad . A version of the playing field was carved into this gate 2,700 years ago.

A version of the game still exists today among the Jewish population of Kochi , a city in southern India .

The Royal Game of Ur may be related to Senet , the most important game in Ancient Egypt.

Rules of the game

Modern rules for this game were developed on the basis of a Babylonian clay tablet dating from 177 BC. BC and is kept in the British Museum. This board may have described the rules of the Royal Game of Ur or similar games at that time. It is the only ancient evidence of the rules of the game from this time. It is doubtful that these rules correspond to the original rules, as they are more than 2000 years younger than the surviving game boards.

In the King's Game, two parties must first “throw the dice” into the board via a specified path, and then “throw them out” again with a suitable throw. The game board includes seven game pieces each in the colors black and white as well as four game dice in the shape of a tetrahedron . The dice each have small notches on two of the four corners. If such a notched corner points upwards, this counts as a counter. For a move, all counters of the four dice are added together. The pieces are pushed over the board according to the number of eyes thrown on the dice, whereby the central axis is used by both players and the playing partners can "throw each other out" there. The game is only played forwards; already occupied fields cannot be occupied by a second token. If a stone moves onto a field marked with a star, the same player may roll the dice again. However, opposing figures may not be thrown out of the star fields.

Quotes

“The really good thing about this game is that you can never be complacent because just when you think you have it in the bag - Bang! Bang! Bang! - and you have to go all over again. And I think that's one of the good things about it. So you never know who is going to win until you've won - and this is a good message for life. "

“What is truly wonderful about this game is that you can never be complacent, because especially when you think you have the game in your pocket - bang! Bang! Bang! - you have to run all the way again. And I think that's one of the good things about it. So nobody knows who will win until someone has really won - and that's a good life lesson. "

- Irving Finkel : The Royal Game of Ur ( YouTube video)

literature

  • Jack Botermans, Tony Burrett, Peter van Delft, Carla van Splunteren: Le monde des Jeux. Editions du Chêne, Paris 1987, ISBN 2-85108-512-3 .
  • Irving Finkel: La tablette des régles du jeu royal d'Ur. In: Jean-Marie André (ed.): Jouer dans l'antiquité. RMN, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-7118-2499-3 , pp. 154–155 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, Musées d'archéologie Méditerranéenne Marseille, November 22, 1991 to February 16, 1992).
  • William Green: Big Game Hunter. In: Time . June 19, 2008 ( online ).
  • Frederic Grunfeld: Games of the World. History, play, do it yourself. Krüger, Frankfurt am Main 1975, ISBN 3-81051704-6 .
  • Jean-Marie Lhôte: Histoire des jeux de société. Géométries du désir. Flammarion, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-08-010929-4 .
  • Ulrich Vogt : The die has been cast - 5000 years around the cube . Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim - Zurich - New York 2012, ISBN 978-3-487-08518-0 , pp. 44–45.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b The British Museum: The Royal Game of Ur. In: Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved February 23, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d William Green: Big Game Hunter. Time, June 19, 2008, accessed February 14, 2010 .
  3. ↑ a b Catherine Soubeyrand: The Royal Game of Ur. Ken Tidwell: The Game Cabinet, accessed February 14, 2010 .
  4. ^ The Royal Game of Ur. Retrieved February 23, 2019 .
  5. ↑ tablet. Retrieved February 23, 2019 .
  6. ↑ as a comment on a game against Tom Scott on International Tabletop Day 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZskjLq040I