The first "board game" appeared at a time when there were no actual boards as we know them today. It was a simple casting of lots, hidden in a fist, or a flat stone with a marked side. While many legends and myths attribute the invention of gambling games to gods and heroes, it likely happened in a more prosaic manner. Who knows, they might appear on casino online games. Shamans would cast the bones of sacrificed animals, twigs, and stones, and then interpret the patterns to gain insights and predict the future. The exact origin of who first thought to gather stones and place them in hollows remains unknown, but it likely took place somewhere in East Africa, the cradle of civilization.
TYAU (ASEB)
A modified version of the Sumerian game "Ur" did find its way to Egypt! Around the time of the 17th dynasty (around 1783-1552 BCE), boards for Senet with shorter fields of 20 squares on the reverse side began to appear in Egypt. In the works of authoritative game researchers Bell and Murray, this game is called "tyau," but David Parlett (game scholar, consultant for the "Britannica" encyclopedia, creator of the game "Hare and Tortoise") believes it was called "aseb," a word that is clearly not of Egyptian origin. This was the Second Intermediate Period, marked by the collapse of the Middle Kingdom, slave revolts, division, and anarchy. Nomadic tribes of the Hyksos invaded from the Near East, and it is likely they brought the game "Ur" with them—characteristic depictions of their chariots are found on gaming sets of that time. However, the game underwent significant changes and simplifications. Tyau (in ancient Egypt, this was simply an emotional exclamation akin to "Gotcha!" or "Bingo!" and the like) became popular during the New Kingdom, and boards for it were found all over Egypt, in Sudan, on Crete, and recently (quite surprisingly) even in the Jewish enclave of the city of Cochin in India. It is often also mistakenly referred to as Senet, causing confusion (in the video game Tomb Raider, there is a quest where Lara Croft needs to "win at Senet," but in reality, it's tyau).
Tyau does indeed resemble the Sumerian Ur: they both have 20 cells, separate starting tracks, a narrow "bridge," similar placement of marked squares (multiples of four), and the boards are empty at the beginning of the game. In tyau, there are five pieces, and they enter the field from the side tracks, with the central row of 12 squares serving as their shared distance. Pieces capture each other, and captured pieces are reintroduced into the game. If a piece lands on a marked square, the player gets an additional throw.
By this time, the Egyptians began to suspect that sticks were not the best random number generator. It is easy to calculate that with a 5xD2 system, the most common result is a two (6 out of 16 throws), followed by ones and threes (4 out of 16), while a four and zero (meaning five) only occurs in 1 out of 16 throws. New-generation dice soon replaced them: two "knucklebones" resembling the hock joints of cows. They already had four significant sides (although two of them were identical), which, when combined, provided four possible combinations. They were soon replaced by a single stick with numbers on the long sides, akin to a thick match. It's worth noting that three "pyramids" from the Sumerian game yield the same result.
Both Ur and Tyau conceal many mysteries. They are too beautiful, harmonious, and conceptually refined—clearly the result of long trial and error. The Sumerians were frequently at war, and it's possible that the game made its way to the city of Ur in its finished form as a trophy. During the excavations of Shahr-e-Sukhteh ("Burnt City") in Iraq, about fifty boards were found, and they vary quite significantly. In 2001, in the Kharg river valley near the city of Jiroft in Iran, the ruins of an ancient city-state from the end of the third millennium BCE were discovered. It belonged to a forgotten people, whose cultural and ethnic identity has yet to be determined. There is a theory that the Jiroft culture may have been the kingdom of Aratta mentioned in Sumerian texts, which rivaled Uruk. The inhabitants of these cities were skilled farmers and craftsmen, but archaeologists found no weapons, indicating a remarkably peaceful civilization.
The Jiroft artifacts have a distinctive "intercultural" style. Among them are flat figurines made of terracotta and chlorite with characteristic markings. These gaming boards, shaped like eagles and scorpions, are dated to 2600 BCE. Some of them have a straight "tail," while others have a curved one. The oldest boards have only 16 squares, not 20, and lack markings. They were likely played with beads. Could this be where the evolution of this game took place? Unfortunately, these excavations were carried out without proper control, flooding museums with forgeries, and the mysteries of Jiroft still await their researchers.
It is highly likely that ancient Egyptians often had the idea to combine the strengths of multiple games. Evidence of this is the "Double Tyau" on an "enhanced" board. Only three boards of this type have been found, and all three are different. It appears that the first board was simply a tyau with a loop for flipping; on the second type of board, players started from opposite ends and moved towards each other, while the third variant was designed for four players. These games were likely created by the orders of desperate game enthusiasts and proved to be too cumbersome, which is why they did not gain popularity.
SHEN ("DOGS AND JACKALS")
This game is not as ancient as Senet and Mehen, and it didn't hold any sacred significance. However, it's undoubtedly the most beautiful and easily recognizable of all the games that emerged in ancient Egypt. Its original name has been lost. Sir William Flinders Petrie, who discovered the first board, classified it as the "Game of 58 Holes." It's also known as "Dogs and Jackals" because of the characteristic shape of the pieces, "shen" - after the hieroglyph written near the finish, as well as the "Shield" and "Palm" game, as a palm tree was drawn on the board. The game emerged during the IX dynasty (2135-1986 BCE) and by the XII dynasty, it had become so popular that Egyptians started taking it with them to the afterlife. Numerous pieces and fragments of boards have been found during excavations in Egypt, Syria, the city of Ur, the ruins of the ancient city of Gezer in modern-day Israel, in Susa in Iran, and in neighboring territories.
The board has two tracks and numerous fields. A board with 58 squares would be enormous, so ancient players ingeniously opted for holes instead of squares, playing with thin sticks. The shape of the field varied. Sumerian boards resembled a boot sole, Coptic ones had a concave "brick" shape, Egyptian ones resembled a shield, and ancient Hebrew ones looked like a violin. Perhaps, no game was adorned with as much love as Shen by the Egyptians. The Faiyum set from the tomb of Princess Renhisheb (Middle Kingdom, 1810-1700 BCE) is simply enchanting. In terms of construction complexity, graceful lines, and fine detailing, it resembles a musical instrument. Ancient masters spent a long time carving and bending wood and bone to achieve such graceful forms. The pieces were also delicate craftsmanship: these distinctive heads of long-eared Egyptian hounds and "heraldic" sharp jackal muzzles with their large ears sticking up have become a model for replication today. This find specifically served as a model for the props in the Oscar-winning film "The Ten Commandments" from 1956, where Pharaoh Seti and Princess Nefertari play this game.
One can only guess at the rules the ancient Egyptians played by, but there are markings, lines, and even inscriptions on the board guiding the movement of the pieces. The races circled around an "oasis" with a palm tree, and the first player whose piece reached the finish (where a snake's eye or the hieroglyph "shen" - "closed circle" or "eternity" - was drawn) captured the water source. The curvature of the penalty and bonus tracks was intended to depict snakes and lizards.
Dogs and jackals held great significance in the culture and religion of ancient Egypt, embodying the boundary between two worlds. The dog was a companion, a guardian, a daytime animal, its bark served as a signaling system for communication with humans. The jackal, on the other hand, was its complete opposite: cunning, a rogue, living in the desert, hunting at night, and its high and loud howl resembled a child's cry. The dog was straightforward, the jackal was cunning and deceitful. Dogs were disorderly, jackals formed lifelong pairs. Yet, they crossbred perfectly. Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead, was depicted as a man with the head of a jackal, and his wife Anput, the goddess of Duat (the realm of the dead), was depicted as a woman with the head of a dog. Their daughter, Kebhet, was the goddess of pure cool water, and she was portrayed as a golden serpent or a woman with the head of a snake (hence the snakes on the game board).
Anubis was the son of Osiris and his sister Nephthys; the story of his birth, loss, discovery in a basket in the reeds, and adoption by the goddess Isis deserves a separate narrative (later, this would serve as the basis for the adoption of another well-known Egyptian infant). Anubis was always considered a noble god because death in Egypt was also considered a sublime phenomenon. Before the cult of Osiris appeared, he was the chief deity of the West, guiding souls through the Kingdom of the Dead. Anubis weighed the deceased's heart on the Scales of Truth, and then placed their hands on the mummy, transforming the deceased pharaoh into an "akhu" ("enlightened one"), and they came back to life. He was a god on the edge, a trickster god, simultaneously the guardian of tombs and the patron of thieves and traders. One couldn't laugh at him, but it was perfectly fine to tease him—he would appreciate it. The Greeks identified him with Hermes. When the Ptolemies ruled Egypt, they calmly merged their Hermes with the Egyptian Anubis and got... Hermanubis.
If Senet was the game of Thoth, the god of wisdom, and Mehen was the game of Set, then "Dogs and Jackals" belonged to the Egyptian trickster, the two-faced god, united in two aspects. It was the lightest, most cheerful, and harmless game of Ancient Egypt: the tracks of the players didn't intersect, and the pieces captured each other in an unusual and amusing way—once a player reached the oasis, the opponent's last piece was removed from the board. The winner was the one who brought more pieces to the finish. For some reason, it seems that this game wasn't taken too seriously—players joked around, made playful remarks, and called each other "lazy dogs" and "crafty jackals." Who made it? Who got chopped? It's all just Input and Anubis having fun: after all, they are one, and as a reward, we get cool water from their beloved daughter Kebhet.
As one ages, games are not always as straightforward. There are almost 60 holes on the board, a number that held great importance in Egyptian astronomy: it relates to the Sun, the Moon, and also to Sirius, meaning, it's connected to the changing of seasons and the flooding of the Nile. The ancient Egyptians considered the number 60 to be sacred and named the god Anubis after it (Anu). Such an intriguing coincidence might shed light on the origin of this game, which, upon closer examination, turns out to be not so banal. Who knows, perhaps Shen will one day present itself as the oldest of all games, with roots tracing back to the earliest astronomical calendars.
