Ancient and Medieval Board Games

People were playing board games earlier than we have any records. The earliest board game that we know about for sure, from Pre-dynastic Egypt, about 3000 BC, is a game called Senet. Senet was like our modern game backgammon. People also played a game like backgammon in ancient Sumer.

By 1500 BC, people in Shang Dynasty China were playing a game called Liubo. We don't really know the rules to Liubo. A little later, about 1400 BC, Second Intermediate Period people in Egypt seem to have been playing an early version of the African game Mancala.

After this we don't know about any new board games for almost a thousand years, but then in 548 BC there were people in China playing Go.

About 400 BC people in China began to play a form of chess, and gradually people in India learned to play chess, and then people in West Asia and North Africa. By the Middle Ages, chess reached Europe, and after 1500 AD Europeans brought chess to North America.

Kids Around the World Play!: The Best Fun and Games from Many Lands, by Arlette N. Braman (2002). For kids. There are lots of ancient games in here too, even though the title doesn't say so.