History Of Backgammon - UK Online Casinos

History of Backgammon

Backgammon is the oldest known gambling game in the recorded history.  It has been played by a number of generations of gamblers all over the world. Tthe game of Blackgammon has been linked with the leaders of ancient civilizations including Persia, Rome, Greece, and Egypt.
Through excavations one has seen that backgammon was traditionally played on wood surfaces by using normal stones as markers, and the dice were made from bones. The very oldest known artifacts that were believed to have been used for the backgammon-like game actually date back to 3000 B.C.

Below you will see the predecessors to Backgammon:
Senat - The first ever version of the game that would later become backgammon would be the Egyptian game “Senat”.  This is also called “Thirty Squares”. The artifacts that were used for the Senat game date back to 3000 B.C. Not a great deal is known about Senats game rules however the boards that were recovered have squares of 3x10, 3x12, and 3x6. The Royal Games of Ur – At the time the royal tomb of “Ur al Chaldees” was found an archeologist found some wooden backgammon boards that dated to about 2600 B.C.

Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum - The Romans named their type of backgammon “Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum” (This translated to “The Game of 12 Lines”). This game is thought to be a direct descendant of the Egyptian Senat game.  It was played using a leather board with thirty markers (fifteen ebony and fifteen ivory). This game has been traced back to around 600 A.D.

Tabula - The Romans took backgammon to the North of Europe at the time it invaded Britain during the 1st Century. At this time the game was generally known as Tabula. Half a millennium after it was given the name Alea and it began to look more like the backgammon game that is played today. It was in Britain when the first rules of the backgammon game that are used today were written. A man named Edmond Hoyle wrote these rules.  In 1743, he also wrote the Treatise on Backgammon.

Nard - By the year 800 A.D. a backgammon-type game had become known in Asia and the Persian empire. The game of Nard was a very  similar game to Alea using two die to move 30 markers. The backgammon board represents one year; every side of the board has 12 points for the months of the year.  It has twenty-four points which symbolise the hours in a day.  The 30 checkers symbolize the days of the month; the amount of opposing sides of the dice symbolises the 7 days of the week; the colours of each group of checkers symbolize the day and night.