Senet

Senet

Senet set inscribed with the Horus-name of Amenhotep III (r. 1391–1353 BCE)
Genres	Board game
Players	2

Senet (Ancient Egyptian: znt, lit. 'passing'; cf. Coptic ⲥⲓⲛⲉ /sinə/ "passing, afternoon") is a board game from ancient Egypt. The earliest representation of senet is dated to c. 2620 BCE from the Mastaba of Hesy-Re,^[1] while similar boards and hieroglyphic signs are found even earlier.^[2] The game fell out of use following the Roman period,^[1] and its original rules are the subject of conjecture.

History[]

Senet in hieroglyphs
znt ("passing")
Painting in tomb of Egyptian Queen Nefertari (1295–1255 BC)

Fragmentary boards that could be senet have been found in First Dynasty burials in Egypt,^[2] c. 3100 BCE. The first unequivocal painting of this ancient game is from the Third Dynasty tomb of Hesy (c. 2686–2613 BCE). People are depicted playing senet in a painting in the tomb of Rashepes, as well as from other tombs of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties (c. 2500 BCE).^[3] The oldest intact senet boards date to the Middle Kingdom, but graffiti on Fifth and Sixth Dynasty monuments could date as early as the Old Kingdom.^[4]

At least by the time of the New Kingdom in Egypt (1550–1077 BCE), senet was conceived as a representation of the journey of the ka (the vital spark) to the afterlife. This connection is made in the Great Game Text, which appears in a number of papyri, as well as the appearance of markings of religious significance on senet boards themselves.^{[citation needed]} The game is also referred to in chapter XVII of the Book of the Dead.^[5] A study on a senet board in the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, dating back to the early New Kingdom of Egypt, showed the evolution of the game from its secular origins into a more religious artifact.^[6]

Senet also was played by people in neighbouring cultures, and it probably came to those places through trade relationships between Egyptians and local peoples.^[7] It has been found in the Levant at sites such as Arad^[1] and Byblos, as well as in Cyprus.^[8] Because of the local practice of making games out of stone, there are more senet games that have been found in Cyprus than have been found in Egypt.^[9]

Gameplay[]

Game box with two games: Tjau on top side of the box and Senet at the bottom, c. 1550–1295 BCE

The senet gameboard is a grid of 30 squares, arranged in three rows of ten. A senet board has two sets of pawns (at least five of each). Although details of the original game rules are a subject of some conjecture, historians Timothy Kendall and R. C. Bell have made their own reconstructions of the game rules.^[10] These rules are based on snippets of texts that span over a thousand years, over which time gameplay is likely to have changed. Therefore, it is unlikely these rules reflect the exact course of ancient Egyptian gameplay.^[7] Their rules have been adopted by sellers of modern senet sets. Scenes found in Old Kingdom tombs, dating 2686–2160 BCE, reveal that Senet was a game of position, strategy, and a bit of luck.

In a presentation to the XX Board Games Studies Colloquium at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Espen Aarseth asked if the game senet could be said to still exist, given that the rules were unknown.^[11] In response, Alexander de Voogt of the American Museum of Natural History pointed out that games did not have a fixed set of rules, but rules varied over time and from place to place. Moreover, many players of games, even today, do not play (or sometimes do not even know) the "official rules".

Games historian Eddie Duggan (University of Suffolk) provides a brief resume of ideas related to the ancient Egyptian game of senet (together with an overview of the so-called "Royal Game of Ur") and a version of rules for play in his teaching notes on ancient games.^[12]

See also[]

• Hounds and Jackals – ancient Egyptian board game
• Mehen – another ancient Egyptian game
• Patolli – a game of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures
• Royal Game of Ur – a Mesopotamian game played c. 3000 BC
• Tâb – a Middle Eastern game that is sometimes confused with senet
• Mancala - a set of similar games played across East and West Africa

References[]

Bibliography[]

• Crist, Walter; Dunn-Vaturi, Anne-Elizabeth; de Voogt, Alex (2016). Ancient Egyptians at Play: Board games across borders. New York: Bloomsbury. pp. 41–80. ISBN 978-1-4742-2117-7.

• Kendall, Timothy (1978). Passing Through the Netherworld: The meaning and play of Senet, an ancient Egyptian funerary game. Belmont, MA: Kirk Game Company.

• Piccione, Peter A. (2007). Finkel, Irving L. (ed.). Ancient Board Games in Perspective. London: British Museum Press. pp. 54–63. ISBN 978-0-714-11153-7.

Further reading[]

• Bell, R.C. (1979) [1960]. Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations. I (Revised ed.). London, UK: Oxford University Press (1960); Dover Publications Inc (1979). pp. 26–28. ISBN 978-0-671-06030-5.

• Bell, R.C. (1983). "Senat". The Boardgame Book. Exeter Books. pp. 82–83. ISBN 978-0-671-06030-5.

• Falkener, Edward (1961) [1892]. "§V. The Game of Senat". Games Ancient and Oriental and How to Play Them. Dover Publications Inc. pp. 63–82. ISBN 978-0-486-20739-1.

• Grunfeld, Frederic V. (1975). "Senat". Games of the World. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. pp. 53–55. ISBN 978-0-03-015261-0.

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Senet.

• Senet at BoardGameGeek
• "Review of versions". BoardGameGeek. Senet. rules speculation
  • "Variations in the rules". BoardGameGeek. Senet.
• "Why did ancient Egypt spend 3000 years playing a game nobody else liked?". Eurogamer. 1 June 2016. Senet compared with the Royal Game of Ur