When we first began reading about Mesopotamia, we found out about the
Royal Game of Ur, discovered by
Sir Leonard Woolley in the excavations of the
Royal Tomb at Ur. Time Magazine also published
a very interesting article on the game last year.
After playing the game online at
the British Museum website, we decided we wanted to have our own Royal Game of Ur. Unfortunately, the ones we found available cost around forty dollars and that just wasn't possible. (
A less expensive cardboard and plastic version is now also sold.) Thus, we decided to build our own game.
My husband kindly cut the board out of plywood for me and we sanded and painted it to look similar to the board shown in our copy of the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia. We measured the board to have two-inch squares and then some borders. We just used paint we had - the blue has been used several times around the house and the other, "Moroccan Spice," is on my family room walls. We already had white craft paint; it's older than my son. I did have to buy some black craft paint, though. I bought the one-inch wooden discs at Michael's. Everything worked out wonderfully until it came time for the pyramidal dice. I just couldn't find or make them. Because pyramids were very special to the Mesopotamians, I felt we could not use anything else. Finally, I asked my daughter to craft four from her Sculpey. Each die has a triangular base and three triangular sides. One vertex is white.
There are
many,
conflicting rules available for the game because those silly Mesopotamians neglected to write down their rules. Or we haven't found them yet. Here are the ones we decided on:
This is a race game. Each player has seven pawns. There are also four pyramidal dice, each with one white vertex. The goal is to introduce the seven pawns, to move them along your designated path, and to be the first to have all the pawns out of the game, similar to backgammon. The start square for each player, the path followed by each player, and the five special, rosette squares are shown in the drawing below. The exit square is the one between the two rosettes.
Movement points are determined by the roll of the dice as follows:
• Zero white vertices and the turn passes to your opponent.
• One white vertex and you can move a pawn one space.
• Two white vertices and you can move a pawn two spaces.
• Three white vertices and you can move a pawn three spaces.
• Four white vertices and you can move a pawn four spaces and you get to roll again.
How to play:
1. Each player throws the dice to dictate the order of play; the player with the higher score begins play.
2. The board is empty at the beginning. Pawns are introduced from the starting rosette one at a time.
3. Any pawns already on the board may advance one square along your path for each movement point thrown.
4. Only one playing piece can be moved per throw and playing pieces cannot be moved backwards.
5. A player must move if it is possible to do so; if no moves can be made, the player forfeits that turn.
6. Except when they are on the refuges (see point nine below), pawns may be attacked by opposing pawns moving in the same direction. If a pawn lands on a square already occupied by an opposing pawn, the opposing pawn is removed from the board and has to restart the game from its start square.
7. A player may have as many pawns on the board as they wish.
8. Each square, except for the rosette squares and the leaving (last) square, may be occupied by one and only one pawn.
9. The rosette squares and the last square are refuges: several pawns of different colors may be present without any danger.
10. If a player's piece lands on one of the 5 rosette squares, that player takes another turn; a different piece may be moved on the second throw. New pieces may be added to the board on any throw.
11. If one player's piece lands on a square already occupied by his or her opponent's piece, the latter's piece is bumped off the board and must begin the circuit again.
12. Each pawn must reach the last square and an exact throw is necessary to exit the board.
13. The first player to complete the circuit of the board with all seven pieces is the winner.
Here is an illustration of the path the pawns take.If anyone else has or does make their own Royal Game of Ur, we would love to see.
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