UR: Game of Twenty Squares

Twenty squares. Seven pieces each. Four dice, and one shared lane where it all goes wrong. The Royal Game of Ur is the oldest board game we know how to play. Boards were buried in the royal tombs of Ur around 2600 BC, and the rules stayed lost for four and a half thousand years — until a cuneiform tablet in the British Museum turned out to be a scribe's description of how the game worked. This is that game. RACE, AND SEND THEM BACK You and your opponent each have seven pieces to bring around a fourteen-square track and off the far end. Four dice decide how far you move. Your own rows are private, but the middle lane is shared — land on an opponent's piece there and it goes all the way back to the start. Five squares carry a rosette. Land on one and you roll again. The rosette in the centre of the shared lane is also safe, which makes it the most valuable square on the board and the one…