Senet and The Royal Game of Ur

     Last lecture (07.11.2014) we spoke more about the ancient games. The purpose of the lectures is for us to get a better understanding of the history by playing some of the oldest games ever found. Even though archaeological evidence suggests that the earliest board games are four thousand years old, we got the opportunity to try out two, more recent games: Senet (the game of 30 squares) and The Royal Game of Ur (aka the game of 20 squares ).    

   

    Before I start writing about the gameplay experience of these two, I will add some board game classification.

    H. J. R. Murray, historian, classified board games in five groups:

    -Game of alignment and configuration (eg Noughts and Crosses, Nine Men’s Morrie etc.)

    -War games (eg chess)

    -Hunt games (eg fox and geese)

    -Race games (eg backgammon, pachisi etc.)

    -Mancala games (eg mancala)

    In 1960 Bell, R. C. organised games into six categories:

    -Race games (eg pachisi)

    -War games (eg chess)

    -Games of position (eg noughts and crosses)

    -Mancala games, which means “to move” (eg Kalah, Oware etc)

    -Dice games(eg hazard)

    -Domino games(eg ma-jong)

The Royal Game of Ur or the game of 20 squares date from around 2600BC. We played the game and the rules encourage players use strategy in order to win. The interaction between players is high which makes the game very competitive.

    

  

    Senet or the game of 30 squares is considered to be five thousand years old. Has some similarities with the Royal Game of Ur in terms of player interaction but the rules and the layout of the game are different.

       

    All in all, both board games are very valuable historical artifacts. The Royal Game of Ur and Senet can be considered parents of games that were discovered afterwards. The strategy and player interaction found in these two can be seen in various modern games.