History & Origins
Senet is one of the oldest known board games in human history, with evidence stretching back over 5,000 years to Predynastic Egypt. The name means "game of passing" in ancient Egyptian — a phrase that carried far deeper meaning than a simple pastime. Boards have been discovered in tombs dating to around 3100 BC, and the game remained popular throughout Egyptian civilisation for over three millennia.
The earliest known Senet board was found in the tomb of Hesy-Ra, a high official from the Third Dynasty. More famously, several boards were found among the treasures buried with Tutankhamun, the boy pharaoh who died around 1323 BC — testament to how important the game was considered for life in the afterworld.
Wall paintings in Egyptian tombs frequently depict the deceased playing Senet, sometimes against an invisible opponent believed to be a spirit or deity. The game was so embedded in Egyptian culture that it appears in art spanning nearly 3,500 years of history.
Cultural Significance
Unlike most games, Senet was not purely recreational. By the New Kingdom period (around 1550–1070 BC), it had become deeply intertwined with Egyptian religious belief. The board was seen as a map of the underworld — the Duat — and the journey of the pieces across its 30 squares represented the soul's passage through the afterlife toward the realm of Osiris.
The Book of the Dead, the collection of spells meant to guide souls safely through the underworld, explicitly mentions Senet in Spell 17, stating that a person who can play and win at Senet will be assured a place among the blessed dead. Playing the game was therefore a form of spiritual preparation — a rehearsal for the journey every Egyptian knew they would one day have to make.
Senet boards were made for all levels of Egyptian society. Wealthy nobles had beautifully carved ivory and ebony sets with gilded pieces, while ordinary people played on simple boards scratched into stone or clay. The game truly crossed all social boundaries.
How the Board Works
A Senet board consists of 30 squares arranged in three rows of ten, travelled in a reversed S-shape — right to left along the top row, left to right along the middle, and right to left again along the bottom. Each player has a set of cone or spool-shaped pieces that race along this path.
Movement was determined by throwing four flat sticks, each painted white on one side and black on the other — an early form of dice. The number of white sides facing up determined how many squares a piece could move. Certain squares on the board were marked with hieroglyphs indicating special rules — safe houses, penalty squares that sent pieces back, and the final squares representing the journey into the afterlife itself.
The exact rules of Senet were never written down in a single document, and scholars have pieced together the likely gameplay from artistic depictions, surviving boards, and fragmentary texts. Several reconstructed rule sets exist today, and the game plays remarkably well by any of them.
Why It Endures
Senet disappeared as a living game when Egyptian civilisation itself faded, but it has experienced a remarkable modern revival. Historians, game designers, and enthusiasts have reconstructed playable versions, and replica boards are sold worldwide. There is something uniquely compelling about playing a game that the ancient Egyptians believed could determine your fate in the afterlife.
It also stands as a powerful reminder that the human desire to play — to compete, to strategise, to leave things to chance — is as old as civilisation itself. When you play Senet, you are participating in a tradition that stretches back to the very dawn of recorded history.