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culture

Assyriologist at the British Museum, translated But let’s now make a very brief excursion to the The Royal
a cuneiform script on a crumbling clay tablet. city of Ur, the holy city, the source of law and Game of Ur:
The document sounded remarkably like the the site of wonder. a two-player
rules of an ancient game. Scholars tried to strategy race
decipher the cuneiform over the years, but it What is it ur and where is it? board game
was Dr. Finkel who was able to identify the Ur is a biblical city, and is listed in the Bible
text on the tablet as instructions on how to (Gen. 11:28-31) as the birthplace of Abraham,
play the Royal Game of Ur after comparing the ancestor of many religions, the father of
it to the other game boards the museum had monotheism. In the Bible, the city is named
stored in its archives. Ur of the Chaldees. The generally accepted
location of ancient Ur is considered to be
The Babylonian tablet revealed that the game the present-day area in southern Iraq, where
is a race between two players to get their the ruins of this biblical city were found on
markers around and off the board. Besides a rounded hill called Tell el-Muqayyar, which
all practical aspects, it was believed that the means Clay Hill in Arabic. In the ancient
game and its result is supposed to tell a player’s times the city was situated in the bed of the
fortune. According to the cuneiform tablet, River Euphrates.
some of the marked squares on the board were
assigned signs of the zodiac and, with them, As to the meaning of the name Ur, science
the predictions came. does not have a clear answer. Some scientists
believe that it comes from the Sumerian word
The tablet explained that the pyramid- “Uru” - city, cuneiform experts decipher it as
shaped dice were used to indicate the “the place where the light lives”.
number of squares a player could move, but
to win strategy and tactics were needed. If a The City of ur- the city State
player lands on a square occupied by their Ur was one of the cities in the settlement system
opponent, they can knock that marker off, founded by the Ubaid culture in southern
and the opponent must start over again with Mesopotamia. Beginning from a village based
that piece. That can set a player back, and on the exploitation of marsh resources and
it is almost impossible to predict who will fishing, by 4000 BCE, Ur’s inhabitants were
win, even near the end of the game. Indeed, raising cattle, goats and sheep, and cultivating
it required a refined strategy, tactics and wheat, barley and dates. The city’s inhabitants
calculation to correctly foresee all steps to maintained an extensive system of canals, on
win. Is it the same in the real-life diplomacy? the average two miles long, and used boats for

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