Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Kemet, Sumer and Eventually spread to Mesopotamia and Persia! not many know that backgammon is actually one of the oldest board games known to man. The story of backgammon stretches back 5,000 years and around the globe, spanning several continents and countries from Kemet (called Egypt by foreigners) and Sumer and Mesopotamia. It is thought that backgammon first originated in Egypt as a game called senet about 5000 years ago also known as the game of thirty squares. This was a two player game played with a dice and a board with a pattern that had squares in three rows of ten.It was played by the wealthy and the poor unlike Backgammon which was originally considered a game for royalty and those nobly born. A board could be drawn in the sand and stones used for the pieces . The game as we know it now dates back to 3000 BC, and although the rules for the game have been lost to time, its similarities to backgammon have led many to speculate that the two games are related. Kemet's Pharaohs had Senet that may have been a precursor to modern backgammon. Sets were found in King Tut’s tomb, one set was found with Queen Hatshepsut’s name on it,Hatshepsut [a]haht-SHEPP-sut; c. 1507–1458 BC) was the Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Thutmose II and the sixth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt and many tomb paintings show both rich and poor people shooting dice over their boards.
The cities of Sumer, first built around 4,000 B.C, {maybe before}, provide the world's first examples of genuine urban centers of large size. In these early cities, especially in Eridu and Urak, people first manifested the high degree of cooperative effort necessary, to make urban life possible. Both of these cities were reflections of this cooperation in their dikes, walls, irrigation canals, and temples. Their efficient agricultural system made it possible to free large numbers of people from working the land. These people were now free to engage in specialized occupations. The early Sumerian cities were characterized by a high degree of social and economic diversity, which gave rise to artisans, merchants, priests, bureaucrats, and for the first time in history, professional soldiers. The almost constant occurrence of war among the city-states of Sumer, spurred the development of military technology and technique far beyond that found anywhere else at the time. Backgammon was thought to be brought from Africa by Sumers first Kings and considered the Royal game of UR. Among the strongest of the Sumerian city states were Ur and Uruk. Ur was situated near the Persian gulf and profited from maritime trade with civilizations to the east. Uruk was one of the most important cities (at one time, the most important) in ancient Mesopotamia. According to the Sumerian King List, it was founded by King Enmerkar sometime around 4500 BCE who is said to have popularized the game of Backgammon. Located in the southern region of Sumer (modern day Warka, Iraq)
It is considered the first true city in the world, the origin of writing, the first example of architectural work in stone and the building of great stone structures, the origin of the ziggurat, and the first city to develop the cylinder seal which the ancient Mesopotamians used to designate personal property or as a signature on documents. Enmerkur Enmerkar[a][b] (fl. c. 2750 BC) was an ancient Sumerian ruler to whom the construction of the city of Uruk and a 420-year reign[c] was attributed. According to literary sources, he led various campaigns against the land of Aratta.
He is credited in Sumerian legend as the inventor of writing.[4] A excerpt of an ancient text states "Because the messenger's mouth was heavy and he couldn't repeat (the message), the Lord of Kulaba (Enmerkar) patted some clay and put words on it, like a tablet. Until then, there had been no putting words on clay." This is the earliest known story in history about the invention of writing.
Historical king
Late Uruk period
The tradition of Enmerkar sometimes called Nimrod as the founder of Uruk seems to date from the Jemdet Nasr period (3100-2900 BC) as found in the Ad-gi4 list. The lexical list mentions Enmerkar and his wife Enmerkarzi as the builders of a town and the bringers of agriculture. A bilingual edition of the list has been found at Nineveh, indicating that the tradition was transmitted into the first millennium. This was the combining of the African language sources with the Eastern.
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