SENET
Senet was the overwhelmingly favorite game of the Ancient Egyptians. The popularity of Egyptian Senet spread far beyond the Nile and it became widely played in the Roman Empire. In Greece, it spawned the slightly improved game Diagramismos or Grammai. Other similar games, including Tabula and Duodecim Scriptorum, evolved from Senet. Senet was itself preceded by the Royal Game of Ur, called so because the original name is lost to us. Senet was being played by at least 2400 BCE, as indicated by Egyptian wall paintings from the Fifth Dynasty. However, a fragment of a pre-dynastic board uncovered near Abydos may date to almost 4000 BC.
Senet was played on a board of three rows of ten squares, with certain spaces having special markings, as shown above. The playing pieces were called ibau, which means dancers. The pieces came in many shapes including pyramids, or cones and barrels. Five black pieces and five white pieces would be put into play on opposite corners and moved according to the throw of gaming sticks, dice, or sometimes astragali (knucklebones). Play was similar to that of Backgammon, in which the first player to get their pieces off the board would win. The strategy is much the same as in Backgammon, in which the opponents players could be blocked to prevent them from exiting the board first. Senet boards have been found that had four rows of twelve squares and four rows of 23 squares. Eqyptian boards that contain only 20 squares are considered to be a different game altogether, one that is most probably the Royal Game of Ur.
The Royal Game of Ur (aka the "Game of Twenty Squares")is played with seven pieces per side on a board with three rows, of which only the center row is continuous. Moves are determined by a throw of the dice, as in Senet. The earliest example was excavated in a cemetery at Ur and was ornately decorated with fine inlays of shell, bone, lapis lazuli, and red limestone. Some Egyptian Senet boards have this game carved on the opposite side, indicating that both games were known to the players. The image below shows an Eqyptian game board box which has the Royal game of Ur on top and on the underside has a Senet board. The same playing pieces were obviously used for both games.
The game box above was inscribed for "The Overseer of Works Taia". It was found in a burial site and contained sixteen blue faience playing pieces and nine casting sticks carved from ivory shown in the photo below.
Numerous conical and spool shaped gaming pieces for use in Senet and other games were found in various Eqyptian sites. The images below show various pieces from different burial sites, some with with enhanced shapes or made from other materials, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
For more on the rules of Senet, see some of the excellent websites below.
www.gamecabinet.com/history/Senet.html www.ancientegypt.co.uk/life/activity/act_main.html www.xmission.com/~psneeley/Shareware/senet.htm
