Senet

ancient Egypt · board games · mystery

Super old game. Senet was one of the earliest board games ever, with pictures of it dating back to around 2620 BCE. That's almost 4,700 years ago!

30 squares long. The game was played on a board with 30 squares, and players moved pawns across them. You needed at least 10 pawns to play.

Found everywhere in Egypt. We know senet was played the same way for thousands of years because archaeologists found senet boards in tombs and saw pictures of people playing it on tomb walls and ancient papyrus scrolls.

Rules are a mystery. Nobody knows exactly how senet was played because the game stopped being played when the Romans took over Egypt, and nobody wrote down the official rules.

Spread beyond Egypt. Senet wasn't just in Egypt, similar games and boards have been found in the Levant (the eastern Mediterranean coast) dating to the Early Bronze Age.