CAST
Four binary tetrahedral-style dice produce a total from 0 to 4. That total is the number of spaces a single piece may move.
LAB / 001
EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY / PLAYABLE RECONSTRUCTION
THE ROYALGAME OF UR
PLAY ↓
01
PLAY THE OBJECT
YOUR TURN
CAST THE DICE
DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION / NOT A FACSIMILE
ROLL — / 4
02
HOW TO PLAY
RACE
Move all seven pieces along your 14-space route and off the board. An exact roll is required to leave the final square.
CAPTURE
On the shared central track, landing on an opponent sends that piece back to its start — except on the protected central rosette.
ROSETTES
Landing on a rosette grants another cast. The central rosette is treated as a safe square in this reconstruction.
03
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL OBJECT
The famous board excavated at the Royal Cemetery of Ur is made from wood and shell inlay, with twenty decorated square plaques and distinctive rosette motifs.
- DATE
- 2600–2400 BCE
- PLACE
- Ur, Iraq
- MATERIAL
- Wood, shell and inlay
- MUSEUM NO.
- 120834
04
EVIDENCE / RECONSTRUCTION
OBJECTHIGH
DICE + PIECESHIGH
FULL ORIGINAL 3RD-MILLENNIUM RULE SETPARTIAL
The excavated Ur sets preserve boards, gaming pieces and tetrahedral dice. A much later Babylonian cuneiform tablet, dated to 177 BCE, records rules for the related Game of Twenty Squares and is described by the British Museum as the world’s oldest known written rules for a board game.
This playable version is therefore a scholarly reconstruction, not a claim that every rule shown here is directly preserved from the original Early Dynastic board.