DirectAidIraq.org — History, Culture and Travel Notes

Dear Reader,

This is an independent publication about Iraq and the lands around it: the first cities of Mesopotamia, the libraries of Abbasid Baghdad, the food on an Iraqi table, the music of the maqam and the places a curious traveller can see today, from the Citadel of Erbil to the reed islands of the southern marshes.

We also keep a small section on games of chance, which have a surprisingly long history here, from the Royal Game of Ur and the oldest dice to backgammon cafés and the casino laws of today's Middle East.

Alongside these, we publish plain-language explainers on how humanitarian aid is organised and what words like refugee or internally displaced person actually mean. We are not a charity, we do not raise or collect money, and we have no connection with the aid organisation that once used this web address.

We hope you enjoy reading, and we always welcome corrections and suggestions.

The Editors

A note on how we write: we rely on published scholarship, museum records and official sources, we hedge any number that cannot be checked, and we write about people with care. Where a subject touches on conflict or displacement, we keep to the facts and leave the story to the people who lived it.

Iraq at a Glance

Where to Begin

If you are new to the region, start with the oldest story. In southern Iraq, Uruk produced some of the earliest writing in the world, the Ziggurat of Ur still rises over the plain near Nasiriyah, and Babylon's glazed-brick gate is famous far beyond Iraq. The royal graves at Ur also held a board game played with pyramid-shaped dice, whose odds would make sense to any modern backgammon player.

From there, move forward to the scholars and booksellers of Baghdad, the music of the maqam and the kitchens that turn river fish into masgouf. Our travel section then brings the story up to date, with practical notes for visitors to Erbil, Mosul, Basra and the marshes.

Games of Chance, Ancient and Modern

Games of chance are among the oldest things the people of Mesopotamia left behind. Sheep's knucklebones served as the first dice, Sumerian players raced their pieces across the twenty squares of the Royal Game of Ur, and a Babylonian tablet even hints at wagering with tokens. Backgammon, known here as tawla, is still the sound of every café.

Our Games & Chance section follows that thread into the present: which countries in the region allow casinos or a national lottery, where travellers from Iraq and the Gulf go when they want a night at the tables, how betting odds on football are built, and how the mathematics of probability grew from the algebra of Abbasid Baghdad.