The Big Idea: Is There Such a Thing as the Perfect Game?
26th October 2023
Irving Finkel, assistant keeper of ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures at the British Museum, has speculated that the fact games sharpen our mind-reading skills – forcing us to put ourselves in our opponent’s shoes – is why they have been such an enduring feature of culture. He even goes so far as to suggest that they developed in tandem with human consciousness. Imagining how someone else might move and planning accordingly provided a tool to explore the inner lives of others, an essential skill for a social animal. Finkel is responsible for decoding the rules behind one of the very first board games in recorded history: the 4,500-year-old Royal Game of Ur, which was rediscovered during excavations in the 1920s. Players compete to race pieces around the board using pyramid-shaped dice.