Senet

Senet is one of the oldest board games known, played in Egypt from around 3100 BCE. Its rules were never written down — everybody already knew them — so what follows is the modern reconstruction from tomb paintings, religious texts and recovered boards, in the tradition of Timothy Kendall and R. C. Bell.

Over the centuries the game turned from a pastime into an image of the soul's journey through the Duat, the underworld, to reach the afterlife. The five named houses at the end of the track are that journey's last trials.

Be the first to walk all five of your pieces along the track and off the far end of the board.

Thirty squares in three rows of ten. Pieces travel the whole board as one continuous inverted S:

Square numbers are printed in the corner of every square, so the path is always readable on the board.

Two players, five pieces each.

Cones move first.

Egyptians threw four flat-sided sticks rather than dice. Each stick has one flat face and one rounded face. Your throw is the number of flat faces showing — except that when no flat face shows at all, the throw is 6.

A throw of 5 is impossible. A throw of 1, 4 or 6 earns you another throw after you have used the current one.

Tap the sticks in the tray to throw them, then tap the piece you want to move and the square it should land on.

A throw must be used if it legally can be, and it moves exactly one piece.

Two pieces never share a square. If you land on a square held by a single enemy piece, you take the square and that piece is bumped back to the square you just left.

Two or more of a player's pieces on adjacent squares defend each other. A defended piece cannot be landed on or swapped.

Three of a player's pieces on consecutive squares form a blockade. Your opponent can neither land on those squares nor move a piece past them.

The last stretch of the bottom row is the dangerous part of the journey.

House of Beauty (26). Every piece must land on square 26 before it may go any further. A piece short of 26 whose throw would carry it past 26 cannot move at all. Once a piece has stopped on 26 it continues normally.

House of Water (27). A piece that stops here — moving forward or backward — drowns and returns to square 15, the House of Rebirth. If square 15 is already occupied, the piece goes back to the lowest-numbered free square on the board instead.

Leaving the board (28, 29, 30). All three exit rules are the same rule: a piece leaves the board by landing exactly one square past 30. That takes a 3 from square 28, a 2 from 29, and a 1 from 30. A throw that would overshoot cannot be used by that piece.

The first player to bring all five pieces off the board wins.