The Royal Game of Ur is one of the oldest board games known, an ancient Mesopotamian race game played in the city of Ur around 4,500 years ago. Two opponents race seven pieces each along a winding track of marked squares, guided entirely by the throw of binary dice. This faithful, modern version lets you play Royal Game of Ur free online in your browser against an AI opponent across three difficulty levels.
Each turn you cast four two-sided dice that together total a roll of 0 to 4, then advance one piece that many squares along your path. The central row is shared, so pieces can collide: land on an opponent there and you send their piece all the way back to the start. Five special rosette squares are decorated and safe, and landing on one grants you an immediate extra turn. The first player to bring all seven pieces around the track and off the far end wins this elegant game of luck and strategy.
The Royal Game of Ur is one of the oldest playable games on Earth. Archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley unearthed several exquisite boards — inlaid with shell, lapis lazuli and red limestone — from the Royal Cemetery of Ur in modern Iraq in the 1920s, dating to around 2600 BC. People raced pieces across these same twenty squares more than four and a half thousand years ago.
Remarkably, we know the ancient rules thanks to a Babylonian clay tablet from 177 BC, deciphered by Irving Finkel of the British Museum — effectively the world's oldest surviving rulebook. The game spread from Mesopotamia across the ancient world and is widely considered an ancestor of backgammon, sharing its blend of dice-driven luck and racing strategy.
Be the first to move all 7 of your pieces along the full path and bear them off the board.
Tap Roll to throw the dice, then click any glowing piece (on the board or in your tray) to move it that many squares.
You must roll the exact number to bear a piece off. Landing on a rosette (✦) is safe and earns an extra turn; landing on an opponent on the shared middle row captures it back to start. Your best score tracks pieces borne off.
Use rosettes as safe stepping stones and to chain extra turns. Guard the central rosette, keep pieces off exposed shared squares when the AI could reach them, and develop several pieces rather than racing just one.
How old is the Royal Game of Ur?
About 4,600 years. Boards excavated from the Royal Cemetery of Ur date to around 2600 BC, and a Babylonian tablet from 177 BC preserves rules for it — the oldest known rulebook for any game.
How does the dice roll work in the Royal Game of Ur?
Four pyramid-shaped (tetrahedral) dice are thrown together, and the number of marked tips facing up — from 0 to 4 — is how far you may move one piece.
What do the rosette squares do?
A piece on a rosette is safe from capture, and landing on one grants an extra roll. The central rosette on the shared middle row is the most valuable square on the board.
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