Board games have been played all over the world for thousands of years and in fact, there is archaeological evidence of various kinds all over the world such as Senet and Mehen in ancient Egypt for example.
There is also a strategy game called “ludus latrunculorum”, which means “mercenary game”, favored by the Roman legions. However, running into a new old board game, from about 4 years ago,000 years, it is still an amazing find.
Last month, a team of archaeologists led by Piotr Bieliński of the Polish Center for Mediterranean Archaeology, and Sultan al-Bakri, director general of Omani antiquities, discovered a stone slab carved with a grid (possibly indicating fields) and cup holes (possibly for holding game pieces) in a Bronze and Iron Age settlement near the village of Ayn Bani Saidah, in the Qumayrah Valley, located in present-day Oman.
According to the researchers, games based on similar principles were played during the Bronze Age in many economic and cultural centers of that time.
Archaeologists have discovered a 4,000-year-old stone board game whilst excavating a Bronze Age and Iron Age settlement near the village of Ayn Bani Saidah in Oman.https://t.co/VpCi5UhRu0 pic.twitter.com/aOyel7ZeVv
— 🅰ntiquity Journal (@AntiquityJ) January 17, 2022
The Royal Game of Ur
“These finds are rare, but examples are known similar in an area stretching from India, through Mesopotamia, to the eastern Mediterranean,” Bielinski said in a statement, citing, as an example, one of the earliest known game boards found in the royal cemetery of the ancient city. Mesopotamian from Ur in 1200, dated about 4,500 years.
Known today as the Royal Game of Ur (or the Game of Twenty Squads), the two-player strategy game that might have been one of the most precious ursors of the backgammon (or that it was simply replaced in popularity by backgammon).
Important trade route
According to him Oman Observer, the area around the dig is one of the least studied regions of Oman, but the findings made by recent studies suggest that the Qumayrah valley was part of an important trade route between several Arab cities.
“This abundance of traces of settlements shows that this valley was an important place in the prehistory of Oman,” Bieliński told the Daily Mail.
“Ayn Bani Sadah is strategically located at a crossroads ”, he added.
The excavations at the site, which has been the object of excavations since 2015, have also given rise to four towers, one of them of at least 18 meters high, and evidence of copper production, all dated to the Bronze Age, between 3200 and the 1200 BC
“This shows that our settlement participated in the lucrative copper trade for which Oman was famous at the time,” Bielinski said in the notice.
With information from DW.
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