Researchers Have Figured Out How To Play This 4,000-Year-Old Board Game Discovered In Iran
More than 4,000 years later, researchers may have finally figured out how to play an ancient board game. It is considered to be one of the oldest in the world.
The game board was discovered in 1977 during excavations of a grave at Shahr-i Sokhta (SiS), a site from the Bronze Age located in southeastern Iran.
The site preserves the remains of a major urban settlement that was occupied from the second half of the 4th millennium B.C. until the middle of the 3rd millennium B.C. During that time period, it was among the most important settlements in the region.
The wooden game board was next to the head of the person lying in the grave. There was also a basket nearby that held a total of 27 carved game pieces and dice. The researchers are operating under the assumption that the game pieces are complete.
Based on radiocarbon work, the game dates back to around 2600 to 2400 B.C.E. Unfortunately, the board game was not buried with a copy of the rules, so researchers have had to try deciphering the game themselves. They believe they have come up with a rough set of rules for the game.
Similar board games have been found in the past, such as the Royal Game of Ur, which is housed in the British Museum. It was played in Mesopotamia and is thought to be one of the world’s earliest game boards.
In the Near East, more than 100 game boards crafted from different materials have been unearthed. The boards were from a period spanning two millennia, indicating that their popularity remained consistent across several eras.
For the Royal Game of Ur, the rules were written down on a cuneiform tablet. It was determined to be a racing strategy game played with dice, although it is still open to interpretation. Of all the examples of game boards out there, the Ur game is the most similar to the Shahr-i Sokhta game.
The research team reconstructed a complete set of the game so they could analyze the board and its pieces more thoroughly.
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It differs slightly from the Ur game due to the greater variety and number of game pieces, suggesting that it requires more strategic thinking to play.
“The blocker pieces cannot attack the opponent’s blockers, as the core of the gameplay is racing, and the rules must focus on the racing aspect. Moreover, the blocker pieces should be able to move more strategically,” the team wrote in their study.
“A possible option in ancient rules is to move the runner pieces and blocker pieces with the rolling of a die. However, the blocker pieces can move with special numbers when rolled, and players decide whether to move them.”
The board’s motif is of a serpent biting its tail. Its body creates a coiling pattern that marks 20 squares or spaces.
Therefore, it is now referred to as the Game of 20. According to the study authors, the serpent could be symbolic, with its head and tail possibly representing the end of the board.
The main purpose of the game is to get all 10 pieces off the board before the other person. Players are able to take out their opponents by attacking them. When a piece is attacked, it has to go back to the board’s starting point.
The researchers can’t be sure if the rules they came up with are exactly right, but they can rest assured that no one really follows all the rules of modern board games either.
The study was published as a preprint in SocArXiv.
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