Senet

Logo of the game

***Senet*** (or ***senat***) is a board game from ancient Egypt, whose original rules are the subject of conjecture. The oldest hieroglyph resembling a senet game dates to around 3100 BC. The full name of the game in Egyptian is thought to have been *zn.t n.t ḥˁb*, meaning the "game of passing".

## Historical notes

Senet is one of the oldest known board games. Fragmentary boards that could be senet have been found in First Dynasty burials in Egypt, c. 3100 BC. A hieroglyph resembling a senet board appears in the tomb of Merknera (3300–2700 BC). The first unequivocal painting of this ancient game is from the Third Dynasty tomb of Hesy (c. 2686–2613 BC). 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 BC). 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.

At least by the time of the New Kingdom in Egypt (1550–1077 BC), 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. The game is also referred to in chapter XVII of the Book of the Dead.

Senet also was played by people in neighboring cultures, and it probably came to those places through trade relationships between Egyptians and local peoples. It has been found in the Levant at sites such as Arad and Byblos, as well as in Cyprus. 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.

## Gameplay

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, senet historians Timothy Kendall and R. C. Bell have made their own reconstructions of the game. 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 actual course of ancient Egyptian gameplay. Their rules have been adopted by sellers of modern senet sets.

## Gameplay in *Ancient Games*

Senet is the first game published by the Ancient Games collection. It features in total 42 Avatars, 28 Boards and 6 Dices.

From where it starts, the pawn must follow an S-like path across all the board, row by row, starting from the upper row, in order to be taken off the board. The dices in question are a bunch of four sticks, whose score is obtained by counting the number of white faces of the sticks (for example, two white faces on the sticks mean that the player can move a pawn by two squares); horever, in case of no whites, the player can move a pawn by 5 squares. If a player scores a 1, 4 or 5, he/she can play again.

A pawn is considered protected if it is beside an ally pawn, and cannot be captured. Instead, it is isolated if it is alone, if an adiacent square is occupied by an enemy pawn and the other is empty, or if it is surrounded by two enemy pawns. If an adversary arrives on the square occupied by an isolated pawn, the two pawns trade places.

The player can move a pawn if it ends up on an empty square, or one occupied by an isolated enemy pawn. The move is instead impossible if the pawn arrives on a square occupied by an ally pawn or a protected enemy pawn.

The last five squares of the board are special: in order to access the last four squares, a pawn must first stop on the previous one (the 26).

* If a pawn ends up on square 27, it is sent back to square 15, or the first empty square before 15).
* If a pawn ends up on square 28, 29 or 30, it is stuck until it is captured, or gets out the board n one throw (for example, a pawn that ends up in square 28 can get out only by a throw of 3). Horever, they can still capture enemy pawns ahead of them, provided that the rules above are applied. It's worth noting that, instead of trading places, the captured pawns are sent back to square 15, or the first empty square before 15).

To score a point, a player must take a pawn out of the board from the squares 26, 28, 29 or 30. The player that scores 7 points first is the victor.

## Trivia

* The game is available in four languages: English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Spanish and German.
* There are also various Ancient Egyptian board games beside *senet*, such as *Tâb* (a Middle Eastern game that is sometimes confused with *senet*) and *Mehen*.

## Gallery

The first Senet board, in early 2015The Senet icon on Google Play in its first versionsFirst Senet main menu UI (in French)
### Boards

#### v1.4

*See also Senet Boards*

Basic Board (Light)Basic Board (Dark)iSenet Board - can be obtained for free by rating the appSteampunk Board - Bonus rare Victory Chest itemEighties Board - Bonus rare Victory Chest itemImprovised Board - Bonus rare Victory Chest itemAphrodisias - Level 5 BoardEkoi Board - Level 10 BoardUr Board - Level 15 BoardTutankhamun Board - Level 20 BoardSpring Board - 1 VictorySummer Board - 10 VictoriesAutumn Board - 25 VictoriesWinter Board - 50 VictoriesAir Board - 100 VictoriesEarth Board - 250 VictoriesWater Board - 500 VictoriesFire Board - 1000 VictoriesEgyptian Board - available at the StoreArabic Board - available at the StoreGreek Board - available at the StoreRoman Board - available at the StorePersian Board - available at the StoreKorean Board - available at the StoreAztec Board - available at the StoreMayan Board - available at the StoreSamoan Board - available at the StoreAboriginal Board - available at the Store
## See also

* Royal Game of Ur
* Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum

 Concepts
 About

fr:Senet
it:Senet
pt:Senet
ar:سينيت
es:Senet