© fcw5 / Adobe Stock
If you think board games are a modern invention, this isn't the case. In fact, the oldest known board game still played today dates back more than 5,000 years and was first played in Ancient Egypt!
Read on to find out more about the five oldest board games in the world. See whether you'll be playing any of these beauties over Christmas!
1. Senet
The game of senet is closely related to backgammon. First played in around 3500 BC in Ancient Egypt, the rectangular board contains three rows of ten squares each. Two players would each have five pieces of a different shade or pattern. The original boards were slabs of limestone, wood, or ceramic earthenware.
The movement of the pieces (placed on the first ten squares) were determined by the throwing of twigs, with a dark side and a light side. Players took turns to move one piece per throw of the twig, depending on whether it landed light or dark side up - a simplified form of a dice.
2. Checkers
More commonly referred to as draughts, checkers is a game for two players that was invented in Ancient Mesopotamia (now Iraq) in 3000 BC. An ancient board, found in the city of Ur, it was carbon-dated to this era. Each player has 12 pieces (known as checkers) which they place on the board, spread over three rows.
The aim is to capture your opponent's checkers while moving one space diagonally forward when it's your turn, leaving your opponent with no moves available.
3. Backgammon
Also created in around 3000 BC, backgammon was first played in Ancient Persia (now Iran) in the city of Shahr-e Sukhteh. An ancient board was found, made of ebony, with 60 markers made of agate and turquoise and a pair of dice.
A two player game, the aim of backgammon is to move all your pieces around the board to your own home area. Then, the first player to get all their pieces off the board wins. The game's rules have changed over the years, with the old set of rules last being used in the Byzantine Empire, in Greece, in around 480 AD.
4. Mehen
First played in Ancient Egypt in 2700 BC, the game of mehen is the only one in the top five which is no longer played today. It was a board game for two to six players and was the first multi-player game discovered by archaeologists.
Buried there between 2770BC and 2650 BC, a mehen board was found in King Peribsen’s tomb. Mehen was the snake god, and the board was circular - in the shape of a coiled snake. The players' pieces were similar to marbles but were made of ivory and shaped like lions and lionesses. The idea was for each of the six players to move their piece around the board, although the exact rules aren't known.
5. Royal game of Ur
First played in Ancient Mesopotamia in around 2600 BC, this game was played by two players and was also known as the game of 20 squares. British archaeologist Sir Charles Leonard Woolley found two game boards in 1920 in the ancient Royal Tombs of Ur.
Historian Irving Finkel (a British Museum curator) reconstructed the game in the 1980s, working out the rules based on a translation from a stone tablet found in Babylon. Modern versions of the game were released using these rules.
A strategy board game, it's an ancestor of backgammon. Today, as well as being a board game, it has also been released in an online version by the British Museum’s Mesopotamia website.
Strategic storage!
If you're planning to play board games over Christmas, you'll need somewhere to store them tidily afterwards! Check out Solent Plastics' range of clear plastic boxes, which let you identify the contents quickly and easily – they might also help you to stop losing any of the pieces!
The ever-popular Really Useful boxes are available in a large array of shapes and sizes. Please contact us for more details of our plastic storage solutions.
Let the games begin!