LYON (euronews) — An ancient board game which once entertained kings and commoners from Sri Lanka to the Mediterranean is making something of a comeback in Iraq.

The modern rediscovery of the game came in 1922, when British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley uncovered five gameboards during a dig at the Royal Cemetery of Ur, in what is now Tal al-Muqayyar in southern Iraq. The boards, shaped like an elongated ’H’, were dated to 3,000 BC and, with no clues as to the game’s contemporary name, it came to be known as the Royal Game of Ur.