Senet

As secular entertainment, the game has been known since the Pre-Dynastic period (c. 3500 BC), in later times it became associated with a trip to the other world. The game is mentioned in the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead and in other religious texts of the New Kingdom , as well as in myths.

According to legend, the ancient Egyptian god of knowledge Thoth invented the game in order to defeat the Moon deity Honsu for a few extra days for the goddess Nut , to whom the sun god Ra cursed (she could not bear children in any of the 360 ​​days of the year). At stake 1/72 of the "light" of each of the 360 ​​days of the lunar year, Thoth won 5 days, after which it became 365 days in the solar year and only 355 in the lunar year, and people got a new game and five extra days on the calendar ^{[ 1]} .

Being initially exclusively secular entertainment, the Senet gradually gained more sacred significance and by the end of the XVIII dynasty (approximately in 1293 BC) finally turned into an “emulator” of the afterlife with square images of the main deities and events of the kingdom of the dead. Some researchers (in particular, Douglas A. White) believe that tarot cards come from the Senet. . In any case, 22 trump cards of the Egyptian tarot deck can really go back to this game, which symbolized the essence of Egyptian culture and was, among other things, a fortunetelling tool . However, this remains only an assumption.

The drawings and graffiti on the walls of the tombs of the Middle Kingdom increasingly depict the Senet as the game of the deceased against an invisible enemy - his own soul . This explains why in the era of the New Kingdom there are so many drawings where a Senet player would seem to have no opponent. Most likely, the Senet itself was an amulet , and it was not even necessary to play it - the mere presence of a game set in the tomb was already enough to provide the deceased with eternal life in merger with the god Ra.

Around the time of the 17th dynasty (c. 1783–1552 BC), boards for senet began to appear in Egypt, on the back of which there are short fields for a game of 20 squares, which today is often confused with the canonical 30-cell senet. Researcher Robert Charles Bell in his book “Board Games of Various Civilizations” ^[2] and Harold Murray in their work “The History of Board Games Beyond Chess” ^[3] state that this game is called “Tiau”. However, David Parlett in his "Oxford Board Game History" ^[4] believes that it was called Assab. The form of the field, dice and the rules of this game are significantly different from the Senet and go back, presumably, to another ancient (this time - Sumerian ) game, known as the “ Royal Game of Ur .”

The first findings of Senet game sets were made at the beginning of the 20th century. At first, the researchers considered these pallets with pieces of ancient chess , then - with checkers , but later it turned out that the game has little in common with them.

The oldest complete set for Senet was found in the tomb of the doctor Hesy -Ra, the keeper of the royal library of the pharaoh Djoser in Saqqara ( III dynasty , c. 2686 BC). Chips there archaic form - "cakes" and "turrets." Unidentified fragments of senet-shaped planks were found in the pre-dynastic burials in Abydos and Saqqara (c. 3500 - 3100 BC). These findings, together with the image of the Senets on the bas-reliefs of the times of the 1st dynasty (3100 BC) indicate that the game may be even older. Images and captions indicate that the Senet was not only a positional game, but also a strategic one. Skillful players could draw all the chips on the board, not allowing the opponent to remove one of their own from the board, but much depended on luck.

By the era of the New Kingdom, the layout of the playing field changed from secular to religious, the sets took the canonical shape of an elongated oblong box, and the chips from the turrets and cakes became cones and coils. As a secular and cult game, the Senet was widespread in Egypt for 3000 years, from the time of the Ancient Kingdom (2600 BC) until the end of the Roman period (350 BC), after which it disappeared. Some of its elements have been preserved in the Arab game " tab ", which is played by the Bedouins in Sudan .

The exact rules of the Senet are unknown. There are several proposed reconstructions (the most popular are Kendall’s rules and Bell’s rules) that allow you to play a game of varying degrees of difficulty, but you cannot say that any of them is obviously true.

There are two players in Senet. The moves are determined by the roll of dice, in which 4 pieces were used in the Senet flat sticks (random number generator D2). Throw all four sticks at once. Scoring is as follows: 1 stick fell white side up - 1 point and an additional throw; 2 - 2 points; 3 - 3 points, 4 - 4 and an additional throw. If all the sticks fell BLACK side up, this is 5 points and an additional throw (this is the maximum result). Multiple throws can be added to move one piece or be used to move several.

Each player has 5 chips (in ancient sets - 7), “reels” against “cones”. Initial arrangement: in one line on the first 10 cells in the top row. Chips were often made plain and differed only in shape. Two variants of the initial arrangement are known from the drawings and bas-reliefs: the first, with the alternation of “coils” and “cones” (the first is always “coil”), and the second, when the first in a row are five “coils”, immediately behind them - five "cones". Perhaps the second arrangement was used at a later time and was mainly sacred, since it is often found on frescoes in tombs.

The 3x10 board, drawn into cells, represents one track laid in three “layers”. The chip path is a race along the route in the form of a Latin Z from the first row to the last. The goal of the game is to remove all your chips from the board and not let the enemy do it. The game used an asymmetric marking system, symbolizing traps that impede the passage of the soul of the deceased in the afterlife and are indicated by hieroglyphs that have an unequal meaning. It is believed that each cell of the Senet symbolizes such a "House", where this or that sacred action or sacrament takes place. Game value (presumably) have 6 "Houses" (according to other versions - 7 or 8). This (in order):

Field No. 15 (“Renaissance House”) - here the chips are re-introduced into the game, which “die” in the main “Houses” of the last row.

Field No. 26 - “Per Nefer” (“House of Beauty” or “House of Rejuvenation”), marked with the image of the character “nefer” (“good”). Presumably, each chip ends the move here, even if enough points are thrown to go further. This is the first House in the line of "main Houses"; it symbolized the transformation of the deceased into a mummy, rejuvenation and, ultimately, preparation for eternal life. Upon reaching the “House of Beauty” (and, in general, in all the main “Houses”), the chip cannot be chopped down, chopped and walked back, but it is possible that the player here immediately receives an additional throw that determines its “fate”.

Field No. 27 - “Per Mu” (“House of Water”). The main trap in the game. In the old marking it was marked with an oblique cross “X”, in the new one it symbolically depicted the Waters of Chaos - through them the solar disk of the god Ra floated on the barge before ascending at dawn. Sinners who were denied a place on the barque were drowning. The chip that stayed here did not pass the test and was removed from the board. Perhaps the player here was again obliged to roll the dice and determine its "fate", but the exact order of these throws is unknown. The "drowned" chip was "reborn" in the "Renaissance House", however, the exact rules for its reintroduction into the game are unknown.

Field number 28 - “House of Three Truths” or “House of Heliopolsky souls”. In the old secular marking was marked with the number “III”, in the new - with the image of three birds. A chip that has got into this square can leave the board only if “3” is thrown out and remains in place for any other result.

Field No. 29 - “Per Re-Atoum” (“House of Ra-Atum”), at a later time - “House of Isis and Nephthys ”. In the old version, the markings were marked with the number "II", in the new - with the image of two kneeling human figures. A chip that has got into this house can leave the board only if “2” is thrown, for another result it remains in place.

Field No. 30 - “Per Ra-Horakhty ” (“House of the Rising Sun”). Passing this square with all the chips, the player successfully completed the game and ritually revived with the sun god, which means that right now, during his lifetime, he received assurances that after death he would withstand all the tests of the afterlife. Leaving the Senet token from the board was tantamount to saving the deceased from the Kingdom of the Dead, uniting him with the sun god Ra, and ultimately deifying him. In the old version, this square was marked with the number “I”, in the new one - with the image of a falcon carrying a solar disk on its head, or simply with the image of the solar disk (a circle with a dot in the center). In the most recent versions, this square did not carry any markings at all. The rules for leaving chips from this house are controversial. According to one version, the chip could leave the 30th house only if the player threw “1”, according to another - the chip could leave this field for any result of the throw.

It is also known that in the square No. 16 there was the "House of the net", which, perhaps, was also a trap, and if the chip fell on this square, the player skipped one move. Peter A. Piccione in his article “In Search of the Meaning of Senet” ^[5] makes another assumption that the chip that got into the Renaissance House received an additional move. Perhaps these two squares together constituted a compensation system designed to neutralize the advantage of the first move. The system is original and rather complex, but it works well: a deuce with a 4D2 generator falls out more often than a triple, and the advantage of the “coils” (initial placement and the right of the first move) is neutralized by the success of the “cones” (probabilistic advantage in the direction of the two, with an extra additional throw in “ Renaissance House "). However, it largely lost its strength with a decrease in the number of chips (from 7 to 5 on each side): the additional move simply had nowhere to come from, but the missed move immediately after the protrusion ceased to be dangerous. In any case, in the late senets, the "House of the net" is never indicated.

Possibly, square 21 (pref. “ Ba House”) also had a game value, but there is no reliable evidence of this. Be that as it may, among the nearly 80 surviving sets of Senet found by archaeologists only in the last five fields the markings invariably coincide, which confirms the special importance of these “Houses” for passing.

The chips moved from start to finish and could chop each other along the way, if caught up, according to the chess principle - getting up on the cage occupied by the opponent’s piece. Two figures on one cell could not be. A figure can jump over another figure if there is a free field behind it. Two figures or more standing side by side (indifferent, one's own or another's) cannot be jumped over.

The taken piece did not leave the board and did not return to the start, but was put on the field from where the piece that took it began to move, that is, when taking the chips, they actually changed places. Most researchers agree that if a player finds himself in a position where no chip can make a move forward, he was obliged to make a move back, and only if this is impossible, the move was skipped, however, the exact rules and regulations for such a reverse movement are again unknown.

There is a rule in the game when two allied pieces standing side by side “guard” each other - the enemy cannot cut down any of them until the player himself breaks such a pair. The three figures are supposedly broken by taking the middle of them. The rules regarding breaking a line of four or more figures are also unknown.

The winner is the one who brings his chips to the end and takes them off the board (as in backgammon ). The player who displays his chips first wins immediately, that is, there is no draw in the Senet.

• In the television series Tutenstein , the pharaoh Tutankhamun (Tutenstein, or Tuten) played with his friends: the girl Cleo and the talking cat Luxor.
• In the second season of the television series “The Abode of Anubis, ” students in search of an Anubis mask appear in a huge hall with large growth statues of dogs. To get to the mask, they must play Senet.
• In the series Lost (Lost), Jacob and his brother (a man with no name, black smoke) played in childhood.
• In the movie " The game right through ."
• In the second season of the animated series " The Adventures of Papyrus ."
• In the video game Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation at the level of "Tomb of Semerhet," the main character Lara Croft had to play Senet. The outcome of the game depended on the further path that the heroine would take to complete the level.
• In the computer game " Nancy Drew: Tomb of the Lost Queen " you can play Senet.

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• Senet History and Rules