4,000-year-old stone board game discovered at Oman excavation site

Archaeologists in Oman have found a 4,000-year-old stone board recreation close to the village of Ayn Bani Saidah. 

Groups from the College of Warsaw’s Polish Heart of Mediterranean Archaeology and Oman’s Heritage and Tourism Ministry unearthed the artifact final month whereas excavating prehistoric settlements in northern Oman’s mountainous Qumayrah Valley. 

A press launch from the Polish college says the archaeologists found a number of towers and Bronze Age buildings “in one of many least studied corners of Oman: the mountain valleys of the Northern Hajar vary.”

Inside one of many buildings, they discovered a board recreation manufactured from stone with “marked fields and cup-holes,” just like video games performed throughout the Bronze Age.  

“Such finds are uncommon, however a number of examples are recognized from India, Mesopotamia and even the Jap Mediterranean basin,” mentioned lead archaeologist Piotr Bielinski.

“Probably the most well-known instance of a game-board primarily based on an analogous precept is the one from the graves from Ur,” Bielinski mentioned, referring to the Sumerian city-state positioned in modern-day Iraq. 

The archaeologists additionally discovered copper objects and proof of copper working on the web site. 

“This exhibits that our settlement participated within the profitable copper commerce for which Oman was well-known at the moment, with mentions of Omani copper current within the cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia,” Bielinski mentioned.  

The analysis space stretches from the village of Bilt within the northeast to Ayn Bani Saidah within the southwest. Archaeologists say human settlement within the Qumayrah area dates again to the late Neolithic interval (4300–4000 BCE).