Ancient Egyptians at play : board games across borders

244 Pages·2016·20.06 MB·English

by  Walter Crist

Bloomsbury Egyptology
Series editor: Nicholas Reeves

Ancient Egyptian Technology and Innovation, Ian Shaw Archaeologists,
Tourists, Interpreters, Rachel Mairs and Maya Muratov Asiatics in Middle
Kingdom Egypt, Phyllis Saretta Burial Customs in Ancient Egypt, Wolfram
Grajetzki Court Officials of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, Wolfram Grajetzki
The Egyptian Oracle Project, edited by Robyn Gillam and Jeffrey Jacobson
Hidden Hands, Stephen Quirke
The Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, Wolfram Grajetzki Performance and
Drama in Ancient Egypt, Robyn Gillam

Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Egyptian Chronology

1 Ancient Egyptians at Play: An Introduction
A range of casting devices
Board games across borders: Identifying Egyptian games

2 Mehen and men: The First Signs of Egyptian Board Games
Mehen: The game of the coiled serpent
Mehen boards
Mehen pieces
Rules of mehen
Pictorial evidence
Textual evidence
Archaeological evidence and social context
The demise of mehen in Egypt
Mehen in Nubia
Mehen in the Levant and Mesopotamia
Mehen in Cyprus and the Aegean
Men
Two rows of thirteen and forty-two and pool

3 Senet across Borders
Early evidence for senet
Old Kingdom: Ritual use and graffiti
Middle Kingdom: Changes and consistency
New Kingdom: Religious meaning
Later history of senet
Playing pieces
Senet in Nubia
Senet in the Levant
Senet in Cyprus
The game of thirty-three

4 The Game of Twenty: A Foreign Acquisition
Origins and chronological distribution
Beni Hasan playing scenes
Ancient names
Boards for the game of twenty
Special squares and decorations
Archaeological contexts
Rules for the game of twenty
“Uniting of the twenty squares” or thirty-one
The Levant and Cyprus: Games as heirlooms

5 The Game of Hounds and Jackals: From Thebes to Susa
Boards for hounds and jackals
Gaming pegs
Beni Hasan playing scenes
The game outside of Egypt
Reconstructed rules
Symbolism of the game
The Coptic board game

6 Roman Board Games Crossing the Borders of Egypt
The sources
The game of five lines or πέντε γραμμαί
Duodecim scripta or ludus duodecim scriptorum
Latrunculi or ludus latrunculorum
Merels or mill game
Marbles
Remaining configurations
The borders of Egypt

7 Arab and Ottoman Invaders Scratching the Surface
Graffiti games
Seeja or siga
Seeja playing rules
Tâb
Mancala

8 The Role of Board Games in Understanding Antiquity
Spread of board games
Religiosity of board games
Site use
Unidentified board games and new approaches

References
Author Index
Subject Index
Illustrations
Figures
All drawings, unless otherwise indicated, were made by Jennifer Steffey at the
American Museum of Natural History in New York, who also designed the maps
for each of the chapters. Dimensions of objects are indicated when available
either as a scale on the photograph or in the caption.

1.1 Casting devices from Egypt and Sudan.
2.1 Map of sites mentioned in Chapter 2.
2.2 Mehen board demonstrating a Predynastic rendering of the game.
2.3 Mehen board bearing the name of Hor Aha.
2.4 Second Dynasty mehen board accompanied by spherical playing pieces.
2.5 Painting from the tomb of Hesy-Re showing mehen, senet and men.
2.6 Ivory mehen piece from Abydos in the form of a couchant lion.
2.7 Mehen game from Episkopi Phaneromeni, Cyprus.
3.1 Map of sites mentioned in Chapter 3.
3.2 Drawing of senet patterns, showing markings common during different
periods.
3.3 Drawing of scene from the mastaba of Nikauhor showing senet playing.
3.4 Facsimile of a painting from the tomb of Nefertari.
3.5 Senet boards on terracotta platters from Twenty-Sixth Dynasty fortress at
Tell Defenneh.
3.6 Playing pieces collected by F.G. Hilton Price.
3.7 Drawing of Merenptah playing senet.
3.8 Senet game from Arad, with drilled depressions as the playing spaces.
3.9 Senet game from Hazor, with the game of twenty on the opposite side.
3.10 Senet games from the Episkopi region, Cyprus.
3.11 Senet game of Late Period date, with the game of thirty-three on the
opposite face.
4.1 Map of the game of twenty from the mid-third to the first millennium BCE.
4.2 The royal game of Ur with gaming pieces and tetrahedrons.
4.3 The game of twenty in the second and first millennia BCE, and the route of
play.
4.4 Playing scenes A, B and C in the tombs of Baqet III and Khety, Beni
Hasan.
4.5 Game of twenty from Thebes with senet on the opposite side.
4.6 Ostracon from Deir el-Medina.
4.7 Drawing of the Turin Papyrus with four games.
5.1 Map of the game of hounds and jackals during the second and first
millennia BCE.
5.2 Game of hounds and jackals from Thebes.
5.3 Violin-shaped game board.
5.4 Drawing of hippopotamus-shaped game board.
5.5 Turtle stand or simulacra from Dra Abu el-Naga.
5.6 Playing scene in Beni Hasan, probably from Tomb 17.
5.7 Boards from the deposit of the temple of Inshushinak, Susa.
5.8 Reconstruction of the numbering sequence of the holes.
5.9 Coptic board game.
6.1 Map of sites mentioned in Chapters 6 and 7.
6.2 Example of a Roman games context at Palmyra, Syria.
6.3 Five lines at the Luxor temple and at Qasr al Ghweita.
6.4 Drawings of duodecim scripta boards from Qustul and Dawwi.
6.5 Duodecim scripta boards at Kom Ombo.
6.6 Drawing of a terracotta game board.
6.7 Latrunculi board at Kom Ombo.
6.8 Merels boards at Dendera, Kom el-Dekka, Kom Ombo and Silsila.
6.9 Drawing of a nine-men’s-morris board as found on a column at the
Ramesseum.
6.10 Drawing of a marble lane.
6.11 Two unidentified game boards at Beni Hasan and Silsila.
6.12 Possible seeja board at the Kharga Oasis.
7.1 Example of an Arab or Ottoman games context at Petra, Jordan and on Sai
Island, Sudan.
7.2 Placement of first pieces on a seeja board.
7.3 Examples of seeja boards at Silsila, Medamoud, and el-Kab.
7.4 Examples of tâb boards at el-Kab.
7.5 Drawing of a mancala board at the “Third Pyramid, Gizeh.”
7.6 Sudanese mancala boards carved in the temple of Tiye, Sedeinga, and on
the temple of Soleb.
Table
4.1 Table with types of marking and distinct shapes for special squares in
Egypt.
Acknowledgments
First of all, we would like to thank Nick Reeves for initiating this book, Anna
MacDiarmid and the staff at Bloomsbury Academic Press for their support in the
process as well as two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and valuable
comments.
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we are indebted to the Department of
Egyptian Art, led by Lila Acheson Wallace Curator in Charge Diana Craig
Patch, for allowing us to study games in the collection, and in particular to Niv
Allon, Elizabeth Fiorentino, Janice Kamrin, Marsha Hill, Adela Oppenheim,
Catharine Roehrig, Morena Stefanova, as well as Ann Heywood from the
Sherman Fairchild Center for Objects Conservation for their assistance in object
or text studies and/or image requests. We wish to acknowledge the Department
of Ancient Near Eastern Art, and Curator in Charge Joan Aruz, for their
considerable support, and especially Blair Fowlkes-Childs, Elizabeth Knott and
Michael Seymour for their contributions.
Ben Haring and Olaf Kaper (Leiden University), Pavel Onderka (Narodni
Muzeum, Prague), Rudolf Haensch (Kommision für Alte Geschichte und
Epigraphik des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts), Dennys Frenez
(Università di Bologna), Mark Kenoyer (University of Wisconsin), Jennifer
Webb and David Frankel provided us with helpful information, and special
mention should be made of our colleagues at Arizona State University, Nancy
Serwint, Leif Jonsson and Kostalena Michelaki, as well as Annie Caubet (Musée
du Louvre) and Francesco Tiradritti (Università di Enna Unikore) for their
invaluable contribution to the progress of our research.
Thanks to Dr. Abdel-Hamid (Egyptian Museum, Cairo), Sara Al-Ashmawi
(Egyptian Museum, Cairo), Nadine Cherpion (Institut Français d’Archéologie
Orientale, Cairo), Nevine Kamal (Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale,
Cairo), Yael Barschak (Israel Antiquities Authority), Christopher Sutherns
(British Museum), Tracey Golding (Petrie Museum), Vincent Rondot (Musée du
Louvre) and Isabelle Bardiès-Fronty (Musée de Cluny) for facilitating access to
images and granting permission.