Ancient Board Games

1. The Royal Game of Ur

and Senet

imdcgd112 introduction to critical games studies

Eddie Duggan
e.duggan@ucs.ac.uk
Ancient games
• Some of the oldest known board
games are still played while others are all but forgotten.
• Some are well known (e.g. chess), others less so (e.g. tablut).
• Over the course of several sessions, together with some
screenings, a field trip to the British Museum and a related
games-design task—all supported by independent study and
relevant reading—you will develop your knowledge and
understanding of several board games from antiquity and the
historical past, for example:
– The Royal Game of Ur (aka “the game of 20 squares”);
Image:
– Senet (aka “the game of 30 squares”); A queen (L) and
– duodecim scripta, tabula (forerunners of backgammon); a king (R):
Two of the 93
– tafl games, specifically tablut (aka The Viking Game). Lewis chessmen.
But they is like totes well old, innit?
• The aim of this section of the module is to
expand your knowledge and understanding of
the history and culture of gaming.
• It will also show some examples of ancient game
mechanics (eg, a race game in The Royal Game
of Ur; an asymmetric war game in
hnefatafl & tablut) that might
inform your work in other
areas of study.

Image: The Viking Game (hnefetafl)

 Simpson, “Homo Ludens”
• St John Simpson notes that scholars’ understanding of the development
of board games has been radically revised by archaeological evidence
from excavations in the near east.
– It was once thought the earliest board games, racing games and position
games, were developed in the third millennium BC (ie 3,000-2,000 BC)
while war games and mancala games were developed later, in the classical
period (ie, when Ancient Greece and Rome flourished) or after.
• However, archaeological evidence
suggests the earliest games are up
to 4,000 years older than previously
thought.
• Simpson cites twelve examples of
Neolithic artefacts that may be game
boards; one example (from Jordan)
can be dated to around 6000 BC
(See Simpson, 2007). Image: Neolithic game board from a site in Jordan,
dated to 5500-6000 BC. Source: Simpson 2007 p.7.
 These are old games
• The board games excavated from Ur are over
4,500 years old;
• The Egyptian game of senet is more than 5,000
years old.

• To put these old race games into some context,

let’s look at some dates on the next slide …
 A Bunch of Dates
• Timeline:
 Classifying Board Games
• Finkel (2007) notes that Murray
(1952) classifies board games
in five groups:
– Games of alignment and configuration
(eg Noughts and Crosses, Nine Men’s
Morris, etc)
– War games (eg chess)
– Hunt games (eg fox and geese)
– Race games (eg backgammon, pachisi, etc.)
– Mancala games (eg mancala)
• See Murray, H. J. R. (1952) A History of
Board Games Other Than Chess. Above: Murray (1952)
Oxford. Clarendon Press. contents page.

– Examples of Murray’s categories are on the following slides …

 Alignment & Configuration

Above (left): Noughts and Crosses Above (right) Nine Men’s Morris
 War Games

Above: Chess (Medieval Themed “Masked” Chess Men: SAC A139)

Hunt Games

Above: Fox and Geese

 Race Games

Above (left): Backgammon Above (right) Pachisi

Mancala Games

Above: Mancala
 Bell, Board and Table Games
• Bell (1960; revised 1979) organises games into
six categories:
– Race games (eg pachisi)
– War games (eg chess)
– Games of position (eg noughts and crosses)
– Mancala games (eg mancala)
– Dice games (eg hazard)
– Domino games (eg ma-jong)
• See Bell, R. C. (1979) Board and Table Games
from Many Civilizations. Revised edition. New
York. Dover Press.
 Parlett’s classification
• David Parlett considers
games in four categories:
– Race Games
– Space Games
– Chase Games
– Displace Games
• See Parlett, D. (1999)
The Oxford History of Board
Games. Oxford. Oxford
University Press.
 Similar, but different
• There are similarities
between Murray, Bell,
and Parlett, and also
some differences.
• For example, for Murray, fox & geese
is a “hunting” game, for Parlett it is a
“chase” game while for Bell it is a “war”
game.
• Similarly, Parlett considers
hnefatafl a chase game while
for Bell and Murray it is a war game.
The Royal Game of Ur

Source: Murray (1952) p. 20.

 The Royal Game of Ur
• Several examples of the game known as “The Royal Game of Ur”
were excavated from the Royal
Cemetery of Ur by Sir Leonard
Woolley between 1926 -1930.
• The tombs at Ur date from
around 2,600BC, which means
that they (and the game boards
inside) are around the same age
as the Egyptian pyramids at Giza.
• Andrea Becker notes that Woolley excavated
three complete boards, and “the halves of at
least two more […] in addition to many fragments
of loose inlay pieces which must have belonged
to gaming boards too.” (Becker 2007 p. 11).
Top: The Royal Game of Ur in the British Museum.
Bottom: Woolley (centre) at the excavation of Ur.
 Ur
• The ancient city of Ur is located in what is now southern Iraq.

Above: The Great Zigguarat of Ur.

Left: Woolley’s excavation in 1934.
Right: Location of Ur, in present day Iraq.
 To Ur is human…
• For fascinating (but not game-related)
background on the excavations at Ur,
see: Roux, G. (2001) “The Great
Enigma of the Cemetery at Ur” in
Bottéro, J. ed. Everyday Life in Ancient
Mesopotamia. Edinburgh. University
Press. pp. 24-40.
• See also Sir Leonard Woolley’s short
account of the excavation: Woolley, L.
(1946) Ur: The First Phases.
Harmondsworth. Penguin.
– Both can be found in the UCS library.
 The board
• The layout of the gaming board consists of what
Becker calls a “larger ‘body’” (4x3 squares) and a
“smaller body” (2x3 squares), joined by a
connecting “narrow ‘bridge’ of two squares” (2x1).
(Becker 2007 p. 11)

• Becker also notes the

five rosette squares
are a consistent feature of game boards from
other times and other regions (Becker 2007 p. 11).
 Murray on gameplay
• Murray suggests pieces enter and leave the board on
the same square.
• He suggests that after a piece enters play, it turns at the
rosette to travel along the centre row, turns onto the
rosette in the small section, travels round to the opposite
rosette, re-enters the centre row and then makes the
return journey, bearing off at the start square.
• Using Murray’s looping circuit, a piece would travel
round a playing
track of 27
squares.
• See Murray
(1952) pp. 19-23.
 Bell on gameplay
• Bell suggests pieces enter play in the
large section on a throw of 5 and bear off
from the small section. He also invests the
rosette squares with some significance.
• He identifies the middle row as the “battle
ground” where
pieces may be
taken.
– See Bell (1979)
pp. 23-25.
 Becker on gameplay
• Becker is more cautious than Bell:
– “We can be fairly certain that two players, with seven
men each and up to three dice, have to fight their way
along the board –- but such essential points as the
location of the start of the game, the direction
followed, and the finish are still unknown” (Becker
2007 p. 11).
• She concludes:
– “The boards themselves do not seem to provide
enough evidence for us to discover how the game
was played, or indeed to elucidate their significance”
(Becker 2007 p. 12).
 Becker on divination
• Becker goes on to discuss the use of the game
for divination:
– Game boards used for divinations
• The engimatic patterns on some boards
might represent or commemorate a
specific divination.
– Boards also used to teach the art of
divination
• Some boards are marked out on clay
models of sheeps’ livers, which were used in divination.
• She concludes the elaborate boards from Ur
may have been used for divination rather than
for playing a Above: game board on clay model of
race game. sheep’s liver, Mesopotamia ca. 1700BC
 The rules of the game
• A clay tablet, dating
from 177BC, sets out
the complicated rules
for the game as it
was played in the
second century BC.
• This clay tablet is the oldest known
set of game rules in the world.
• It is on display in the British Museum, alongside
one of the gameboards excavated from Ur by
Leonard Woolley, dating from 2600BC.
 1956 and all that
– The tablet, excavated in 1880, lay
unrecognised in the BM collection until
it was the subject of a 1956 journal article,
suggesting that its markings were
concerned with fortune telling.
– By coincidence, another article in the same
issue featured a similar, slighly older, clay
tablet, with “partly identical material” (Finkel 2007 p. 16).
• Both were later found to be concerned with a game.
Finkel notes both clay tablets are also concerned
with using part of the game board for fortune telling.
• See Finkel (2007) pp. 16-32.
 Finkel on the “rules”
• Irving Finkel, Assistant Keeper in
the British Museum’s Department
of the Middle East, deciphered
the cuneiform script on the BM’s
clay tablet.
• He found 12 astrological phrases
associated with the squares on
the central row of the board.
• The tablet also contains information about the pieces, the
dice, getting onto the board, and on landing on or on
missing a marked square.
• Thus for Finkel, while there is an astrological aspect, and
a significant part of his paper discusses this, the board is
primarily for gaming.
 The Game of Twenty Squares
• Finkel refers to the game as “The Game of 20 Squares” (this
term describes both early and late variations of the board).
• He notes that the board becomes “increasingly common”
in archaeological excavations of sites dating from the second
and first century BC, and that more than a hundred have
been found.
• Finkel also observes that, during the early part of the second
century BC, the layout of the board changed: the six squares
on the smaller 2x3 body were “straightened out” and added
to the bridge, thus extending the part of the board in which
the two players are in conflict.

Above: The later board

 Finkel on the later board
• Finkel observes that, if in the earlier layout of the
board, pieces were “safe” once they left the
central row and turned the final corner, “the new
format would suggest a change in play, in that
the pieces would remain ‘at war’ all the way to
the end of the track” (Finkel 2007 p. 18),
producing more exciting game-play.
• The later game was played with five rather than
seven pieces, making the game faster to play.
– Finkel also notes that one of the cuneiform tablets
records the name of the game as “Pack of Dogs”
 Finkel on gameplay
• Finkel’s route around the board has the
pieces enter as per Bell, and bear off at
the end.
• He also notes that,
as Murray suggested,
the game has a
betting aspect, based
around landing upon
or missing the rosette
squares. Above: From Finkel (2007)
 Five Easy Pieces
• Finkel determines that the five gaming pieces used
with the later board are distinguished from each
other, and represent different birds:
– swallow, “storm bird”, raven, rooster and eagle.
• The earlier version of the game was played with seven
undifferentiated counters.
• When entering play, specific throws appear to
place specific pieces on a certain square; for
example, “if the astragals score two, the Swallow
sits at the head of a rosette”.
– The swallow piece could go onto the first rosette, or onto
the square in front of any rosette (Finkel notes the tablet
requires interpretation and there is some ambiguity).
 Did someone say
“astro gal”?
Astragals
• An astragal is a knuckle bone from the ankle
of a goat or sheep, used as a four-sided dice.
• The two sides are flat; .
the front and the back .
are concave and convex. .
– Finkel notes the clay tablet refers to two astragals: one
sheep and, unusually due to its size, one ox.
• The clay tablet refers to throws of 5, 6, 7 and 10.
– Much of Finkel’s paper considers how the two astragals
might be used to achieve these throws, including using
the ox bone as an optional modifier.
 Finkel on astragals
• Finkel proposes the sheep astragal would score
1, 2, 3 or 4.
• He suggests the ox astragal might optionally be
thrown as a yes:no binary to modify the score,
resulting in 5, 6, 7 or 10, for a “yes” or forfeit the
original throw for a “no”.
• There are times when a low score would be
sufficient (eg, to land on a rosette, or to bring the
the swallow into play); at other times, a higher
throw would be required.
 No dice
• The use of the sheep and ox astragals
relate to the game as played on the later
board with five pieces.
• The earlier version of the game, as found in the tombs at Ur by
Leonard Woolley, used either long dice (four sided “throwing sticks”)
or tetrahedral dice, and were played with seven pieces.
 Keep it simple, Finkel
• While Finkel offers a detailed analysis of the astrological
phrases on the clay tablet, and devises a method by
which the noted throws might be achieved with the
two astragals in the scholarly 2007 collection, he also
presents a simplified version of the game in Games:
Discover and Play Five Famous Ancient Games (2005).
• Although ostensibly a children’s book, it is ideal for
our purposes. Multiple copies are available in the
library. Note that the book has “push-out” spinners
& counters: please use your own gaming bits rather
than push out the pieces from the library books.
– See also: Finkel, I. (1997) Ancient Board Games which
contains game boards and simplified rules for four ancient
games, including senet and the game of Ur. (This book
comes with a set of plastic game pieces which are in a
DVD case on the shelf, so be sure to get both bits & book)
 Gameplay: the early board
pieces enter here pieces leave here

turn turn

turn turn

pieces enter here pieces leave here

• Using four sided dice (either pyramid-shaped dice, or long "throwing

sticks"), each player moves seven pieces around the board, bearing off with
an exact number to finish.
• If a piece lands on an opposing piece, that piece is "taken" and must restart.
• Landing on a marked square (ie a “rosette” square) gives another go.
• A player on a marked square cannot be "taken".
 The later board
• Sometime in the second millennium BC, the
game underwent some changes:
– the small section was "straightened out" to extend
the centre row where the pieces engage in battle.
– The number of playing pieces was reduced to five.
• These changes would make the game faster to
play (fewer pieces to get home) and more battling
would occur on the elongated centre row.
 Dice
• Two types of dice were found with the game boards at Ur.
– One type was the "throwing stick" or long dice.
• These four sided sticks have a mark on each side (the ends are not
used). The upper surface indicates the roll.
– The other type is a tetrahedral (four-sided) or pyramid-shaped dice.
 Tetrahedral Dice
• You may already be familiar with four sided dice
(or “D4"): they tend to come in two types:
– in one type, the value of the roll is determined by the
face of the dice which is flat on the surface (ie, the
bottom)
– with the other type, the value of the roll is determined
by the point which is uppermost.
• While the D4 from Ur is different to both, it is
similar to the latter in that the upper point
determines the roll: two of the points of the dice
from Ur are marked with an indentation "so that
tossing a single tetrahedron gives two chances
out of four" (Finkel, 2007: p. 17).
 Making your own Ur D4
• Four conventional D4 dice can be "marked up"
by applying a dab of Tippex to two points or
corners:
– The roll will be 1 when a marked corner is uppermost
or zero for an unmarked corner.
– As Finkel observes with the Ur D4,"tossing a single
tetrahedron gives two chances out of four" (Finkel,
2007: p. 17).
• Using four such dice, the player
will roll either zero, one, two,
three or four.
 Games Compendium
• Some versions of The Game of Twenty Squares are set
atop a box with a drawer to store the dice and pieces.
• Some ancient Egyptian game
boards have a board for The
Game of Twenty Squares
marked on one side and the
Egyptian game, senet, also
known as The Game of Thirty
Squares, on the other.
• Such boxes were popular
during the New Kingdom, and Above: Senet board, British Museum
Piccione notes most known
senet boards are of this type; their prevalence and
durable construction a testament to their religious and
significance in this era (see Piccione 2007 p.55).
 The Game of Twenty Squares
• Finkel notes that the Game of Twenty
Squares still survives. Apparently having
left Mesopotamia, it travelled as far as
India where it is still played by girls and
women in the Jewish community in Cochin.
• The game in Cochin is known as “asha”
• See Green (2008): http://bit.ly/XSnMV
Senet
 Senet
• Paintings and papyrii show the Egyptians
probably played six board games, senet, t’au,
han, mehen, menet and a game known as
hounds and jackals. (See Kendall 1978 p. 3).
• Most is known about senet, a race game played
on a board of thirty squares.

Image: An Egyptian wall painting from a Twelfth Dynasty tomb at Beni Hassan
(2000-1780BC) shows a game of sen’t in progress. Source: Murray (1952) p. 14.
 Murray’s overview
• Murray offers an overview of some of the earliest discoveries of
game boards excavated from ancient Egyptian sites, together with
examples of paintings and texts depicting board games.
• However, some of the game boards identified by Murray are not as
he labels them: for example, Murray suggests a game box that
clearly shows the later board of the Twenty Squares game from Ur
(Murray 1952 p. 16 Fig 4) “appears to be sen’t” (p. 18) while the
senet board on the other side of the box (p. 17 Fig 5) is “a
modification of sen’t” (p. 18).

Above (left): Murray Fig 4 Above (right) Murray Fig 5

Murray on gameplay
• Murray makes no suggestion as to
how senet might be played,
although he does comment that
pieces would enter the board
through the marked squares
(which we now think of as the exit
squares) before passing through
the door symbol (“the beautiful
house”) and entering into play.
• He also notes many senet boards
“generally” have twenty pieces, in
two sets of ten, along with
throwing sticks or astragals.
 Bell’s View of Senet
• Bell notes that evidence provides “no clue” as to
how the game was played.
• He does suggest however that senet is a race
game played with ten pieces each (despite
observing the painting at Beni Hassan has the
inscription “to play with five”) which are arranged
in the first two rows.
• Perhaps ten pieces each is suggested because,
like Murray, Bell also notes the drawer in one
board in the British Museum contains 20 playing
pieces.
 Bell: On Senet Gameplay
• Only one piece may occupy a square: captured enemy
pieces are removed from the board (Bell makes no
mention of pieces re-entering play) and that play
alternates with pieces advancing to the marked exit
squares (X, III, II and I), where they are protected until
borne off with an exact throw.
• A piece landing on “the beautiful house” is protected, but
must move to a marked square as soon as possible.
• “Blocking” is implied, but not elaborated upon.
• The player removing most pieces from the board is the
winner
(Bell 1979 Volume 1 p. 28)
 Parlett
• Parlett notes that pieces “vary between five and
seven a side” (p. 67) before five is established
during the period known as The New Kingdom
(18th-20th Dynasties, 1550-1150 BC).
• Parlett’s discussion of gameplay follows
Kendall’s “widely approved” interpretation.
– Kendall is widely quoted: a copy of his 1978 Passing
Through the Netherworld can be borrowed from me
on request.
• The suggested rules that follow do not adhere to
Kendall directly, but are a hybrid, also differing
somewhat from Finkel (2005).
 Kendall, The Game of Passing
• Kendall provides a detailed history of the
evolution of senet from a simple popular
game (he called it the “national pastime”
of ancient Egypt, played by commoners
and kings) to a funerary object common
in burials to a more elaborate board with
more overt symbolism with a religious
significance concerned with the afterlife
that developed during the Old Kingdom
(ca. 2700–2180 BC).
Image: The Egyptian Book of
• During 19th Dynasty,(New Kingdom, ca. the Dead, Chapter 17 (detail)
1303–1200 BC) The Book of the Dead Ani and his wife sit at senet
incorporated senet imagery (e.g. Ch. 17). while their spirits (ba) sit on
• The popularity of the game eventually the tomb with bird bodies.
waned when Egypt was Christianized See also Kendall’s “Games”
during the Roman era. entry in the 1982 exhibition
– See Kendall 1978, passim. catalogue, Egypt’s Golden Age.
 It’s a set-up!
• There are two sets of pieces, conventionally
“spools” and “pawns” or short pieces and tall
pieces, lions and jackals, etc.
• Pieces are arranged alternately on the first ten
squares, or 14 squares if playing with seven
pieces each (with 14 pieces, Ankh is the first
square of play).
 The Senet Board
Pieces on Houses 26-30 can be taken. A piece landing on House 27 goes to House
15 (or the empty space behind it if 15 is occupied). Pieces on Houses 28-30 can only
move by throwing the correct number required to leave the board.

26: “The Beautiful House” or “House of

Happiness” (a name for the mummification 29: “House of Re-Atoum”
chamber or funeral parlour). Throw two to leave the board
All pieces must land on this square. from here.

27: “The House of Water” 28: “House of Three Truths”

(the Nile: cross it to enter the netherworld) Land Throw three to leave the board
here and you reappear at Ankh (life) on 15. from here
 Leaving the House of Happiness
• A piece on the House of Happiness can exit the
board (pass through the netherworld and enter
the afterlife) with a throw of five.
• A piece on the House of Happiness can also
land on an opposing piece occupying Houses
28-30.
• An opposing piece so-taken does not swap
places and enter the House of Happiness,
but is sent instead to the House of Water
and re-enters the board at
House 15 (Ankh).
 A Moving Statement
• Pieces must move forward if they can: if a piece
cannot move forward, it moves backwards. If it
cannot move backwards, the move is forfeited.
• A piece landing on an opposing piece
exchanges places with that piece.
• A player cannot exchange with an opposing
piece that is one of a pair.
• A player cannot pass opposing pieces in a group
of three.
 Throw-sticks and astragals
• We don’t have throw sticks or astragals, but we
can improvise with binary tetrahedral dice.
– The following throws are suggested:
Score Dice combination
1 Three plain and one marked and THROW AGAIN
2 Two plain and two marked END OF TURN
3 One plain and three marked END OF TURN
4 None plain and four marked and THROW AGAIN
5 Four plain and none marked and THROW AGAIN

NB: Finkel (2005) allows a player to split a throw between pieces,

but nobody else writing about senet suggests this as a possibility.
 Tweaking the game mechanic
• Read around the Game of Twenty Squares and/or Senet
(refer to the reading suggestions for each game at the
end of these notes).
• Take notes and/or make sketches as required to secure and
develop your understanding of the game(s).
• After a field trip to the British Museum you will be given
the task of using ideas drawn from your Project Module
readings to iteratively tweak the game mechanic of your
selected ancient game in a workshop session.
– You might then adapt this game and its mechanic for use in
another part of your study on the course, eg create a version
in Unity, or create a non-digital design for your personal
portfolio (NB: the second assignment for this module asks you
to create a design document for an iterated ancient game).
 Let’s play!
• After a 20 minute break (feel free to come back earlier, with tea or
coffee), form pairs and play at least a couple of games using the
game bits provided.

• Royal Game of Ur
– paper boards, long-style, from Finkel (2005);
– five glass counters each (five dark and five light);
– a set of four D4 (share a set if there aren’t enough)
• Senet
– paper boards, from The Museum of Science, Boston;
– seven or five glass counters each, according to choice;
– a set of four D4 (share a set if there aren’t enough)

• This will give you a feel for the game(s) before the session after the
trip to the British Museum, when you will be asked to introduce your
own iterative tweaks to the ancient game of your choice.
Reading: The Royal Game of Ur
Becker, A. (2007) “The Royal Game of Ur” in Finkel, ed. pp. 11-15.
Bell, R. C. (1979) Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations. Revised edition. See
pp. 23-46.
Botermans, J. (2007) The Book of Games: Strategy, Tactics and History. London. Sterling.
See pp. 711-722
Finkel, I. (1997) Ancient Board Games. New York. Welsome Rain.
Finkel, I. (2005) Games: Discover and Play five famous ancient games. London. British
Museum Press.
Finkel, I. L. (2007) “On the Rules for The Royal Game of Ur” in Finkel, ed. pp. 16-32.
Finkel, I. L. ed. (2007) Ancient Board Games in Perspective: Papers from the 1990 British
Museum colloquium with additional contributions. London. British Museum Press.
Green, W. (2008) “Big Game Hunter”. Time Magazine. Available online: http://bit.ly/XSnMV
Murray, H. J. R. (1952) A History of Board Games Other Than Chess. pp. 19-23.
Partlett, D. (1990) Oxford History of Board Games . Oxford. University Press. pp.63ff
Royal Game of Ur. The Oriental Institute of the Univesity of Chicago
https://oi.uchicago.edu/order/suq/products/urgamerules.html
 Reading: Senet
Bell, R. C. (1979) Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations. Volume 1. Revised edition. New
York. Dover. See Ch. 1, “Race games”, esp. pp. 26-28.
Botermans, J. (2007) The Book of Games: Strategy, Tactics and History. London. Sterling. pp. 163-172
Freed, R. ed. (1982) Egypt’s Golden Age: The Art of Living in the New Kingdom 1558 – 1085
BC.Castalogue of the Exhibition. Boston. Museum of Fine Arts.
Finkel, I. (1997) Ancient Board Games. New York. Welcome Rain.
Finkel, I. (2005) Games: Discover and Play five famous ancient games. London. British Museum Press.
Finkel, I. L. ed. (2007) Ancient Board Games in Perspective: Papers from the 1990 British Museum
colloquium with additional contributions. London. British Museum Press.
Kendall, T. (1978) Passing Through the Netherworld: The Meaning and Play of Senet, an Egyptian
Funerary Game. Belmont, Mass. Kirk Game Company.
Kendall, T. (1982) “Games” in Freed, (ed) . pp. 263 – 272.
Kendall, T. and May, R. (1992) “”Le Jeu de Senet” in Jouer dans l’Antiquitié. pp. 130-147.
Murray, H. J. R. (1952) A History of Board Games Other Than Chess. Oxford University Press pp 12-18.
Partlett, D. (1999) Oxford History of Board Games. Oxford. University Press. pp. 66-68.
Piccione, P. (1980) “In Search of the Meaning of Senet” Archaeology July-August. pp. 55-58
[Available online] http://gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Archives/Piccione/
Piccione, P. (2007) “The Egyptian game of senet and the migration of the soul” in Finkel (ed) pp. 54-63.
 Play online
The Royal Game of Ur / Twenty Squares:
• Royal Game of Ur: A Board Game from Mesopotamia.
British Museum. [Travel online to the Royal Tombs of Ur
and play the Royal Game of Ur online. Requires the
Shockwave plugin]
http://mesopotamia.co.uk/tombs/index.html
Senet / Thirty Squares:
• Senet: A Board Game From Ancient Egypt. British
Museum. [Play the game of senet online. Requires the
Shockwave plugin]
http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/life/activity/main.html
 Download
• Royal Game of Ur • Senet
– Android – Android
Aseb/Game of Ur (99p) Sabiya Senet (free)
http://bit.ly/19Zqm6v http://bit.ly/179lI9G
Royal Game of Ur (free) Senet (free)
http://bit.ly/17Hm1oG http://bit.ly/H97lbA
– iOS – iOS
Aseb/Game of Ur (£1.49) Sabiya Senet (free)
http://bit.ly/1iciNOI http://bit.ly/H0M57u
Game of Ur (£1.49) Senet Deluxe (£1.49)
http://bit.ly/H99ILx http://bit.ly/17HnueD