# Senat - so how'd they figure out the rules - from tomb paintings?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senat-so-howd-they-figure-out-the-rules-from-tomb-paintings/38133>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 24, 2000, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senat-so-howd-they-figure-out-the-rules-from-tomb-paintings/38133 "2000-10-24T16:58:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\
**Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senat-so-howd-they-figure-out-the-rules-from-tomb-paintings/38133/1 "2000-10-24T16:58:38Z")

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I recently got a version of “Senat,” the ancient Egyptian game that’s similar to backgammon. It’s fun (especially since I’m on a winning streak versus the Beloved - woo-hoo!), but I’m wondering - how do we know what the rules are? They’re fairly complicated, and the game wasn’t played for a couple of millenia.

Where Egyptologists able to figure the rules out just from illustrations in tomb paintings? did they find the board and counters in King Tut’s tomb? was there an ancient papyrus: “The Rules of Senat accoring to Thoth-Hoyle?” Or, did they just sit down and say “dunno how Tut did it - here’s how we’ll play.”

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**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senat-so-howd-they-figure-out-the-rules-from-tomb-paintings/38133/2 "2000-10-24T22:09:00Z")

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The best I could find was this:

> [@](#):
>
> Edward Falkener in his work entitled, _Games Ancient and Oriental_, which he lent for exhibition here, has published a restoration of the ancient Egyptian game of [644] senat from fragments of Egyptian boards which have come down from 1600 B.C. The game as thus restored is in some respects similar to the Zuni game, the men being taken as in seega by getting them between two others. The Zuni game, however, may be regarded as in advance of any other board game even of our own civilization, until we come to the true game of chess.  
> source: [http://columbus.iit.edu/bookfair/ch20.html](http://columbus.iit.edu/bookfair/ch20.html)

shareware versions of senet are availible for download many places on the web, such as  
[http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PSNeeley/senet.htm](http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PSNeeley/senet.htm)  
[http://www.newton.cam.ac.uk/egypt/ad/senet.html](http://www.newton.cam.ac.uk/egypt/ad/senet.html)