6,000-year-old board game discovered in ancient tomb may be early ancestor of chess

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Archaeologists in southern Russia have made a fascinating discovery: a 6,000-year-old game board. Researchers think this ancient game might be a very early relative of chess, almost like something you’d see in a horror movie’s opening scene.

Archaeologists working in the Aksaysky District discovered an ancient game set at the Aglitsky I burial mound. The set is believed to be around 6,000 years old, dating back to the fourth millennium BC.

The most important discovery was a game board split down the middle by a bar. In the center stood a small statue of a human-like figure on a base, which researchers think likely played a special role in the game, possibly for religious or ceremonial purposes.

More than 50 small game pieces, probably made from the leg bones of sheep or rams, were found around the game board. These pieces had flat bottoms, which allowed them to stand up, indicating they were made to be used again and again during gameplay.

Archaeologists find ancient board game in burial site

Experts suggest this game could be a precursor to strategy board games like chess. Although chess is thought to have originated from the Indian game chaturanga around the 7th century AD, evidence of even older, structured strategy games has been found in Mesopotamia and surrounding areas, proving these types of games existed thousands of years ago.

The game’s design suggests connections between the cultures of Mesopotamia and the Eurasian steppe around 6,000 years ago. Researchers think these gaming traditions likely spread northward with groups connected to the ancient Uruk culture, who carried the game boards and pieces with them as they migrated.

A game board was found next to the skeleton of a person buried with their knees drawn up to their chest, along with pottery, stone tools, and the cores used to make flint tools. This suggests the game wasn’t just a pastime, but may have been important for social or religious reasons, perhaps meant to accompany the person into the afterlife.

Leonid Ilyukov, a researcher at the Southern Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, tried to figure out how an ancient game was played. He believes the game pieces might be an early form of chess.

Ilyukov suggests the ancient game wasn’t just for fun, but held a deeper significance. He proposes players may have viewed it as a representation of life’s journey, with each move symbolizing the path of the soul after death.

Ancient Egyptians also seemed to connect games with death and the afterlife, as pictures of board games were frequently found painted on the walls of tombs.

Researchers recently used artificial intelligence to finally figure out the rules of an ancient Roman board game that has baffled historians for over a hundred years. The AI played the game thousands of times in a computer simulation, and by comparing those results to the actual wear and tear on the original stone game board, it was able to determine how the game was likely played.

So far, it’s unclear if a similar attempt with AI will be made for this discovery.

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2026-03-10 22:52