No one can actually lay claim to the game, cavemen played with bones as dice in primitive times, what would have it taken to add a few more stones to those movements and put them tin a pattern on the ground, becoming a backgammon board of sorts.

Backgammon the actual name derives from either the Saxon meaning of back game("baec"-back, "gamen"- game) or from the Welsh language meaning a small battle("bac" or "bach"-ttle, "gammon" or "cammaun"- battle.

Perhaps the Welsh version is more accurate, in that the game is after all a small battle. Aside from this the origins of backgammon are lost in time, many cultures and civilizations have laid claim to its birth, the Egyptians played a form of the Game called Senat, the boy King Tutankhamen was entombed with a Senat set to play presumably in the after life.

The Mesopotamians (now Iraq) competed in their own version of the game, as did the Romans. Emperor Nero was sad to cheat regularly at the game. Archeological evidence shows that the emperors' game was even popular with even the lower class during the Roman period. Knights of the Crusades were also keen on the game and the old English terminologies of 8th centuries trace the game tables. It is possible that many battles throughout the years have been fought by opposing armies who prior to going into the battle were playing their own version of backgammon on either side of the battle lines, what a delicious irony that is.

Throughout these times the game has endured long after the civilization itself has disappeared, in one form or another, backgammon is the derivative of many ancient games like Nard, Tric-trac, Ludus etc.

Even today's backgammon is the reformation and collation of many such games, which have been played in several periods all over Europe. The ancient Greeks used to play a very similar game called Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum, the game of the twelve lines. Even the ancient Italians showed a great deal of evidence of playing such board games. There was another board game called tric trac, which had enough popularity in the earlier civilizations. Archeologists found the engravings of Bonnart of 1693, which portrays the three royal princes of France playing the game tric-trac. The acceptance of the game even by family members could be witnessed from that same Bonnart art, when we can witness their father dauphin watching the game of the three princes. Another board game Nard, got introduced in Europe in the primitive days, may be 902 AD. The conquest of Sicily by Arabians had paved the way of Nard in Europe.

But backgammon is not a game confined to Europe China The Americas and India as well as the Middle East can all quote some form of the game, emphasizing its roots go much deeper than what it catalogued.

Backgammon has endured the passing of the centuries in the time if Henry the Eighth it was outlawed and boards were burned, but it was revived by his Daughter Queen Elizabeth the first who introduced the game to court where it again enjoyed the royal favour, with the rules and practices finally formalized.

In Europe backgammon remained a pastime or recreation of the aristocracy, Kings and Queens were far more likely to have been seen playing the game than the common person. This somewhat exclusive view in many ways was its downfall when as with most things the game fell out of fashion around the 17th century replaced in the main by playing cards and card games.

It's Phoenix like moment came in the 1920's which introduced the doubling cube into the game, again no one has a patent on this, but it is said to have come from America. This innovation was the start of a new era in backgammon and continues today, now with the world wide the latest messenger for the game, Backgammon has a whole new world and a whole new audience to play it. Today you can download backgammon on the internet and play online with people all over the world.