How to understand this phrase?

Question

ゲームの歴史それははるか5,000年の昔古代エジプトにまでさかのぼるという｡

Well, I can understand some parts of it (which I put in bold):

• ゲームの歴史: game history.
• 5,000年の昔: 5000 years ago.
• 古代エジプト: ancient Egypt.
• さかのぼる: go up.

But the meaning of it seems unreachable to me. :(
I've researched in websites like: jgram, imabi, renshuu.org. But I haven't had luck. It feels like the structures I do study are never seen in authentic language use, hahaha.
This text is the opening of the first Yu-Gi-Oh episode.

Could somebody help me make sense of the elements of this sentence?

Answer 1

ゲームの歴史、それははるか5,000年の昔、古代エジプトにまでさかのぼるという｡

"The history of games goes way back to ancient Egypt about 5000 years ago."

Something about this sentence feels a bit clipped to me. But nevertheless, "さかのぼる" is a great word that more or less means to go upstream, against the flow of the river. But in this context, its meaning is to reach back, figuratively, in time.

はるか gives the sense of being quite a ways away. (After all, 5000 years is almost all of recorded history, so pretty far back.)

にまで is another nice construct combining the two particles に (at) and まで (upto) which in this context means "back to".