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"Little Things": Ancient Egyptian Gaming Board and Playing Pieces Faience; Board dimensions: 1 5/16 x 9 3/16 x 4 1/8 in. (3.3 x 23.3 x 10.5 cm) Middle Kingdom, XII Dynasty-early XIII Dynasty, ca. 1938-1700 B.C.E. Provenance not known, purchased from the Scheurleer Museum, The Hague Brooklyn Museum, acc. nos. 36.2 and 36.3.6-12, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund Photo © Joan Ann Lansberry, 2008 - 2013 |
(from the info cards) "Senet ("the passing") was one of the most popular and enduring board games in ancient Egypt. Players moved their gaming pieces along a rectangular board of thirty squares arranged in three parallel rows. Although this blue-glazed faience board resembles the traditional senet playing surface, it has only twenty-one squares. Perhaps it was intended as a funerary offering that merely represented a senet board. Although the board and seven 'pawns' displayed here may have formed a set, they could have been assembled from several sources." |
'Twenty Squares' game at OIM |
Mehen game at OIM |