Two of these games survive as boards from tombs and royal cemeteries, with their rules lost or only partly recorded; the third is still played every New Year. Below: what each one is, what the evidence says, how they compare, and where to learn each one properly. Then backgammon, an old family with a younger game, and one younger cousin, whose earliest traces only go back to about 1800.
Three ancient games
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The Royal Game of Ur
Mesopotamia · a race for two
The boards that gave it its name were found in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, in southern Iraq,[1][2] and the British Museum dates its board to 2600–2400 BC.[3] The rules come from much later: a Babylonian tablet of 177–176 BC, which the museum calls the world's oldest known rules for a board game.[2][4] It doesn't give the route the pieces take, so every modern version is partly a reconstruction.[2]
Its name means "passing".[6][7] Its earliest likely trace is a set of ivory squares from a First Dynasty tomb, about 3100–2900 BCE, and the latest certain evidence is from the 26th Dynasty (664–525 BCE).[5][8] Boards and paintings survive from more than two thousand years of play, but the texts that mention the game don't say how to play it.[9][10] Every modern version, ours included, is a reconstruction.
Korea's New Year game, played from New Year's Day to the first full moon,[11][12] and in 2022 named National Intangible Heritage.[13] It is still played every New Year, but nobody knows where it came from: the old records don't settle it, and scholars have no agreed answer.[11][12] It is centuries old; how many centuries is still argued over.[12][13]
The Romans raced their pieces round a board of three rows of twelve, the game of twelve lines,[18] and a quicker game grew out of it when the middle row was dropped.[19] A Greek poem of the 6th century AD records a game played by the Emperor Zeno with backgammon's 24 points and 15 pieces a side, but three dice.[20][19] In Persia it is nard.[18] The game called backgammon is much younger: the English name is first recorded in the mid-1600s,[21] and Edmond Hoyle printed its laws in 1743.[22]
A folk dice game from the coasts of Denmark and Norway, played with pegs in a board of three rows of holes. It belongs to a family of three-row games known otherwise from North Africa and western Asia,[15] but the earliest traces only go back to about 1800.[16] In Norway it is known only in Jæren, on coastal farms, where it has been played without a break.[14]
Four are races: you throw, move, and try to get all your pieces round the board first, knocking your opponent back on the way. Daldøs has no finish line at all. Its pegs go round and round, and the game ends when one side has none left.
A timeline
The dates the sources give, in order. Not to scale: the first entries are thousands of years apart.
c. 3100–2900 BCESenet: ivory squares from a First Dynasty tomb at Abu Rawash, its earliest likely trace.[5]
2600–2400 BCRoyal Game of Ur: the British Museum's board from the Royal Cemetery at Ur.[3]
664–525 BCESenet: the last certain evidence, platters with the game's grid from Tell Defenneh.[5][8]
177–176 BCRoyal Game of Ur: a Babylonian scribe writes out rules for it on a cuneiform tablet.[2][4]
6th century ADBackgammon: a Greek poem by Agathias records the Emperor Zeno's game of tabla, with 24 points and 15 pieces a side.[20][19]
date unknownYut Nori: centuries old, but how old, and where it began, are still argued over.[12][13]
1283Backgammon: Alfonso X of Castile's Book of Chess, Dice and Tables describes a whole family of games on its board.[23]
1743Backgammon: Edmond Hoyle's Short Treatise on the Game of Back-Gammon prints "The Laws of the Game".[22]
c. 1800Daldøs: the earliest traces, in Denmark.[16]
1895Yut Nori: Stewart Culin's Korean Games records the board as it is still drawn.[17]
2022Yut Nori is named National Intangible Heritage of Korea.[13]
What we know, and what we don't: for Senet and the Royal Game of Ur we have the boards but not the whole rules, so the games you can play today are reconstructions.[2][9] Yut Nori is still played every New Year, but its origin is unknown.[11][12] And Daldøs can be traced back the least far of the four: to about 1800.[16]
Sources
Each source is also cited, with the full story, on the game's own guide.
University of Pennsylvania Almanac, vol. 56, no. 9, on the Ur excavations. almanac.upenn.edu
Irving L. Finkel, "On the Rules for the Royal Game of Ur", in I. L. Finkel (ed.), Ancient Board Games in Perspective, British Museum Press, 2007, pp. 16–32.
British Museum, the Royal Game of Ur, museum no. 120834. britishmuseum.org
British Museum, the rules tablet, museum no. 33333,b. britishmuseum.org
Walter Crist, "Debunking the Diffusion of Senet", Board Game Studies Journal 15(1), 2021, pp. 13–27. doi.org
Anne-Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi, "Board Games from Ancient Egypt and the Near East", The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018. metmuseum.org
Brooklyn Museum, game board with separate drawer, 37.93Ea-b. brooklynmuseum.org
British Museum, EA23803 (a platter from Tell Defenneh). britishmuseum.org
Peter A. Piccione, "In Search of the Meaning of Senet", Archaeology 33, July/August 1980, pp. 55–58. charleston.edu
R. C. Bell, Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations, vol. I, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 1969, pp. 25–28.
Jang Jang-sik (장장식), "윷놀이" (Yut Nori), Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Arts: Folk Games, Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, National Folk Museum of Korea. folkency.nfm.go.kr
Park Jang-young (박장영), "윷놀이" (Yut Nori), Encyclopedia of Korean Seasonal Customs: First Month, Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, National Folk Museum of Korea, 2004. folkency.nfm.go.kr
Korea Heritage Service, "윷놀이" (Yut Nori), National Intangible Heritage, designated 11 November 2022. heritage.go.kr
Alf Næsheim, "Daldøsa, an old dice game with an obscure origin", Board Games Studies 4, 2001, pp. 9–14. ludicum.org (PDF)
Peter Michaelsen, "Daldøs: an almost forgotten dice board game", Board Games Studies 4, 2001, pp. 19–31. ludicum.org (PDF)
Peter Michaelsen, "Daldøs og Sakku – to gamle nordiske spil med fjerne slægtninge" (Daldøs and sáhkku, two old Nordic games with distant relatives), Ord & Sag 19, 1999, pp. 15–28. tidsskrift.dk (PDF)
Stewart Culin, Korean Games, with Notes on the Corresponding Games of China and Japan, University of Pennsylvania, 1895, "Nyout-nol-ki", pp. 66–73. archive.org
Ulrich Schädler and Anne-Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi, "Board Games in pre-Islamic Persia", Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2009. iranicaonline.org
R. G. Austin, "Greek Board Games", Antiquity 14, 1940, pp. 257–271. web.archive.org
Agathias, in W. R. Paton (trans.), The Greek Anthology, vol. III, Loeb Classical Library, 1915, Book IX, no. 482, pp. 268–269. archive.org
Dictionary.com (Random House), "backgammon" and "gammon". dictionary.com
Edmond Hoyle, A Short Treatise on the Game of Back-Gammon, London, 1743. archive.org
Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Biblioteca, Alfonso X, Libro del ajedrez, dados y tablas, 1283 (El Escorial, RBME Ms. T-I-6). biblioteca.ucm.es