The game of passing
Egyptians played Senet for about three thousand years. We have their boards, their pieces and paintings of people playing. What we don't have is anyone writing down the rules.
Where it comes from
Senet boards appear in Egyptian burials from around 3000 BCE, so it is older than the Royal Game of Ur. People are shown playing it in tomb paintings from the Old Kingdom onward. One of the best known is a painting of Queen Nefertari at the board, in her tomb in the Valley of the Queens, from the 1200s BCE. Tutankhamun was buried with several Senet boxes. Some of them are double-sided, with a different game on the back.
The name means something like "passing". Over time the game took on religious meaning. Moving across the board came to stand for the soul's journey through the afterlife, and the Book of the Dead mentions the dead playing Senet.
The marked squares
Many boards have signs on the last squares of the path. Those signs are the strongest clue to how the game was played. This version follows Kendall's reading of them:
- 15
- House of Rebirth. Pieces washed back from the water start again here.
- 26
- House of Happiness. Often marked with the sign nfr, meaning "good" or "beautiful". Every piece must land here on its way.
- 27
- House of Water. Marked with water lines. A piece that lands here goes back to square 15, or the nearest empty square before it.
- 28
- House of Three Truths. A piece leaves only on a throw of exactly 3.
- 29
- House of Re-Atoum. A piece leaves only on a throw of exactly 2.
- 30
- The last square. A piece leaves on exactly 1.
How the rules were pieced together
Modern players use reconstructions. The best known are by the Egyptologists Timothy Kendall (1978) and Peter Piccione (1980). They drew on the markings on surviving boards, the pieces found with them, paintings and late religious texts that mention the game. The two versions differ in many details. This game uses Kendall's, the same rules as the Senet page elsewhere on Stellar Whiskers.
What we know and what is a guess
Known
- 30 squares in three rows of ten.
- Two sets of pieces, usually cones and spools (reels), often five or seven each.
- Moves came from throwing sticks or knucklebones.
- The signs on the last squares, and the game's religious meaning in later times.
Best guess
- The snake-shaped path, and the starting layout on squares 1 to 14.
- Swapping places when you land on a lone enemy piece.
- Three pieces in a row blocking the way.
- How the throws are counted, and what each marked square does.
Choices this version makes
- A piece leaves the board only on an exact throw to one step past square 30. That single rule gives Kendall's "28 needs a 3" and "29 needs a 2". It also means square 30 needs a 1.
- "Every piece must land on 26" is played as a checkpoint: a piece can't move past 26 until it has stopped there once.
- A piece on 28, 29 or 30 that can't leave with this throw may choose to fall back through the water to square 15 instead.
- If you can't move at all, you pass.
- Choose Your own rules on the home screen to try other readings: five or seven pieces, safe pairs, walls of three, the House of Happiness checkpoint, the House of Water, exact throws to leave, and R. C. Bell's extra throw on a 1, 4 or 5.
- You can choose how safe pieces are. With Swap with any single piece, landing on any enemy piece swaps the two, unless it's part of a wall of three. With Pairs are safe, two pieces side by side can't be swapped, as in many Senet apps. Wikipedia's summary of Kendall doesn't mention protected pairs, but it's a popular way to play.
Sources
- 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. (1980). "In Search of the Meaning of Senet." Archaeology 33 (4): 55–58.
- Wikipedia: Senet