Senet or senat (; cf. Coptic , 'passing, afternoon') is a board game from ancient Egypt that consists of ten or more pawns on a 30-square playing board. The earliest representation of senet is dated to 2620 BCE from the Mastaba of Hesy-Re, while similar boards and hieroglyphic signs are found even earlier, including in the Levant in the Early Bronze Age II period. Even though the game has a 2,000-year history in Egypt, there appears to be very little variation in terms of key components. This can be determined by studying the various senet boards that have been found by archaeologists, as well as depictions of senet being played throughout Egyptian history on places like tomb walls and papyrus scrolls. However, the game fell out of use during the Roman period, 3100 BCE. The first unequivocal painting of this ancient game is from the Third Dynasty tomb of the high official Hesy. There is a depiction of Nefertari (wife of Ramesses II) playing senet in tomb art as well during the New Kingdom. Tutankhamun's tomb also contained the game.
Senet is depicted in ancient texts, including in Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead, where the individual who has died plays the game against an invisible opponent. The game of senet is also depicted in a scene depicted on papyrus dating from roughly 1250–1150 BCE that shows a lion and a gazelle playing senet (in the possession of the British Museum).
A game that could be senet is also referenced in the Roman-era Egyptian literary work that has been given the title in modern times of Setne Khamwas and Si-Osire. In this story, Naneferkaptah challenges Setne to a board game, with the winner taking a book he had been looking for as a prize. The game in this story is not explicitly stated; however, similarities such as the religious implications and structure of the game support the idea that it could be senet being depicted.
The oldest intact senet boards date to the Middle Kingdom, but graffiti on Fifth and Sixth Dynasty monuments could date as early as the Old Kingdom. However, there have been no actual senet boards that have been dated to the Fourth through Sixth Dynasties, just evidence that they did exist from depictions in tombs. In a painting from the Third Dynasty tomb of Hesy-Re, a senet game is depicted along with other boardgames from this era.
A study on a senet board in the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, dating back to the early New Kingdom of Egypt, showed the evolution of the game from its secular origins into a more religious artefact. However, the archaeological context of this senet board in question is unknown—it was acquired by the Rosicrucian Museum in London in 1947, and due to poor archaeological practices of the time, the provenance at this point appears to not have been recorded. Senet was also adopted in Cyprus around the end of the third millennium BCE and continued until at least the Bronze Age.
Senet was rediscovered and reintroduced to the world by Egyptologists during archaeological excavations in Egypt in the 1930s. As no complete record of the game's rules survived, the Swiss archaeologist Gustave Jéquier analyzed recovered senet boards and artistic depictions of senet to devise a conjectural set of rules for the game, which precipitated the initial revival of senet in the modern era. The Jéquier rules were eventually replaced by alternative sets of rules that were reconstructed in the latter half of the 20th century by the Canadian historian R. C. Bell and the American archaeologist Dr. Timothy Kendall. Various other Egyptologists have proposed additional rule sets over the years, but these have generally been discredited by subsequent archaeological findings. A complete senet game set would have contained a distinct set of five pawns for each of the two players. At least by the New Kingdom, these pieces were in the form of hounds or dog-headed figurines. Through most of the game's 2,000-year history, the senet boards themselves would indicate the direction of play, usually from the top left corner and indicated by the decorations on the spaces. The last five squares were often the most decorated on the board. The decorations on the last five squares were unique, usually having a mark related to goodness or an aquatic reference on them. However, their rules have been adopted by sellers of modern senet sets.
Kendall
In Dr. Timothy Kendall's rules, the object of the game is for one player to advance all five of their pawns across the senet board and remove them before the second player does so. The game's length can be extended by increasing the number of pawns allocated to each player as desired, to a maximum of ten pawns per player. The original iteration of Kendall's rules published in 1979 called for seven pawns per player.
Players take turns and begin by throwing a set of four flat wooden sticks with one side painted white and the other side painted black (or differentiated by some other means), equivalent to two-sided dice. The number of sticks that land on white determines how far a single pawn may advance that turn. One white stick and three black sticks signifies that the player may advance one of their pawns forward by 1 house, two white sticks means the pawn can advance by 2 houses, and so on. If all four sticks land on black, then the pawn can advance by 5 houses.
[[File:Senet_board_numbered.JPG|thumb|The path of pieces through the 30 squares of the Senet board, as numbered by Peter Piccione