Editing Backgammon (section)

==== Ancient history ====
[[File:British Museum Royal Game of Ur.jpg|thumb|One of the [[gameboard]]s found by [[Leonard Woolley|Sir Leonard Woolley]] in the [[Royal Cemetery at Ur]] ([[British Museum]])<ref>{{cite web |title=game-board {{!}} British Museum |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1928-1009-378 |website = The British Museum |access-date=18 November 2021 |language=en}}</ref>]]

The history of board games can be traced back nearly 5,000 years to archaeological discoveries of the [[Jiroft culture]], located in present-day [[Iran]], the world's oldest game set having been discovered in the region with equipment comprising a dumbbell-shaped board, counters and dice. Although its precise rules are unknown, it has been termed the [[Game of 20 Squares]] and [[Irving Finkel]] has suggested a possible reconstruction. The [[Royal Game of Ur]] from 2600 BC may also be an ancestor or intermediate of modern-day table games like backgammon and is the oldest game for which rules have been handed down. It used tetrahedral dice. Various other board games spanning the 10th to 7th centuries BC have been found throughout modern day Iraq, Syria,  Egypt and western Iran.<ref name="Iranica board game">{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Schädler |first1=Ulrich |last2=Dunn-Vaturi |first2=Anne-Elizabeth |title=Board Games in pre-Islamic Persia |url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/board-games-in-pre-islamic-persia |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Iranica |access-date=2018-04-11}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite book|title=Ancient Board Games in Perspective: Papers from the 1990 British Museum Colloquium, with Additional Contributions|last=Becker|first=Andrea|date=2007|publisher=British Museum Press|isbn=9780714111537|editor-last=Finkel|editor-first=Irving|editor-link=Irving Finkel|location=London, England|pages=16|chapter=The Royal Game of Ur|oclc=150371733}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite book|title=It's all a game : the history of board games from Monopoly to Settlers of Catan|last=Donovan|first=Tristan|publisher=Thomas Dunne Books|year=2017|isbn=9781250082725|edition=First|location=New York|pages=13–16|oclc=960239246}}</ref>