5 of the Oldest Board Games in the World
Ever since humans achieved consciousness, it’s been joined by its unwanted brother: boredom. As such, even our long-gone ancestors occasionally needed a way to fill time, and that led to board games. Less injection-molded plastic, sure, but still very recognizably the sort of thing you might pull out from under an ancient coffee table.
Here are five of the oldest board games in the world…
The Royal Game of Ur
An archaeologist digging in the Royal Cemetery of the Sumerian city of Ur probably wasn’t looking for a way to spend free time. Yet, that’s exactly what he found. Sir Leonard Woolley, over the course of his excavation in 1928, found five game boards, meaning he’d not only discovered a board game from between 2400 and 2600 B.C., but a popular one.
The game received the name of the city it was found in, but evidence suggests it was popular in multiple cultures across the Middle East — e.g., boards have been found in the tombs of the Pharaohs. Of course, at first, they had no idea how to play it, until a rulebook (rule tablet?) was also discovered.
As for the game itself, two opposing players race pieces around a board with the ability to knock each other off, with elements close to Mancala or Backgammon.
Mehen
Mehen is an ancient Egyptian game also known as “The Game of the Snake,” which is undeniably a great start. Evidence of the game goes back to 3600 B.C., and it appears in the tomb of Hesy-Ra from 2650 B.C. Unlike the game of Ur, though plenty of boards and pieces have been dug up, no one’s been lucky enough to dust off a Starter’s Guide. As such, the actual method of playing Mehen is more of an educated guess.
We do know that it involved two teams, lions and lionesses with corresponding pieces and a shit-ton of marbles. At least by one interpretation, it seems that the players attempt to race toward the middle of the board, movement earned by correctly guessing how many marbles the opponent has hidden in their hands. The lions and lionesses add a wrinkle in the form of “attacking” spaces.
Senet
Senet, a game that also appears in the tomb of Hesy-Ra, and one that Tutankhamen himself was buried with five copies of, was exceedingly popular in Egypt. So much so that it crossed over into their religion, with gods challenging each other to games and being mentioned in the Book of the Dead. Mechanically, it’s again similar to those above in that players are attempting to clear their pieces from the board first, with interactions able to capture pieces and impede an opponent’s progress.
Nine Men’ s Morris
Finally, I can present to you a game that isn’t a race, and one that’s luck-free. Nine Men’s Morris is instead an ancient game of strategy, one that feels somewhere between Tic-Tac-Toe and Othello. Its popularity is proved by its easily identifiable board, which is found carved into surfaces at the sites of multiple ancient civilizations, where it was likely known as “Merellus.”
The rules for this one aren’t subject to any debate, as it was still popular up until World War I. They are, however, fairly complicated. It makes for good strategy, but not the most entertaining wall of text. The TL;DR version is that two players take turn placing pieces, and then moving them in an attempt to remove or trap the other player’s pieces, at which point they win.
If you want a further breakdown, I highly recommend the visual medium of video.
Backgammon
Recognizable backgammon games show up all the way back to 3000 B.C., and it seems to have a particularly strong link to Senet. Unlike Senet, though, it made the jump to becoming popular worldwide, expanding into both Eastern and Western civilization. If you’ve never played, it’s not particularly hard to learn, and I can personally say it holds up pretty well. It’s again a race between two players to remove their pieces from the board, with the ability to both impede and protect the pieces along their path based on dice rolls.
