Backgammon , or trictrac, a board game for two persons, played with dice, of the race-game type, was known in the central Islamic lands as nard , a Persian word of uncertain origin, said to be a shortening of nardashīr , in turn derived from Ardashīr (Artaxerxes, r. 224-41 C.E.), founder of the Sāsānian dynasty (224-651 C.E.), who in some legends is said to have invented the game (in the version of the poet Firdawsī (d. 411/1020), Shāhnāma , trans. Davis, 701-4, the game called nard is