History of Backgammon

According to historians backgammon game has its origins in Mesopotamia in the Persian Empire, which today is Syria, Iraq and Iran, besides being the oldest entertainment which are no records to prove it. The game took place on flat surfaces, usually wood material, using stones instead of cards and dice were built of bones, stone, ceramic or wood. Archaeologists have been able to find cards, dice and backgammon boards that consist of hundreds of years old, until the time of the Sumerians, Egyptians and Persians.

Backgammon has been associated with aristocrats and leaders of civilizations mentioned above, as it makes clear what praise relics taken from literary and archaeological excavations carried out in areas of Rome, Persia, the Far East and Greece. In Egypt were found backgammon boards 3x6, 3x10 and 3x12, known as "senat" or the "game of 30 squares." These artifacts date back to the years 3000 to 1788 BC Many boards of wood material were found in the royal tomb of Ur Al Chaldees, the center of the Sumerian kingdom, which date back to 2600 BC These boards are found with tetrahedral dice and we called "Royal Game of Ur."

A set of rules for a form of backgammon game of that era were found on a board cuneiform, dating from the year 177 BC In addition, the Romans left clear evidence of an entertainment called "game of 12 lines", which made use of a leather dash and a total of 30 cards (15 from the remaining ivory and ebony). These artifacts date from 600 BCE

Researchers believe that this is an entertaining game derived from Egyptian Senat. During the first century AD, the game was replaced by a variant consisting of 1x12 instead of 3x12 lines, which move closer still the game that is known today. After the Roman conquest in the first century AD, the backgammon reached England, where the game was called Tabula. During the 6th century A.D. The game is called "random", which became the most direct precursor of backgammon game today, despite having many rules regarding the location of the movements and chips.