Board games, like the Senet board pictured on page 20, have been a popular form of entertainment across cultures for millennia. This particular game board came from Tel Arad in Israel and dates to the Early Bronze Age (c. 2500 B.C.E.). It was used for the Egyptian game Senet—the game of 30 houses—that reflects the journey of the soul in the afterlife according to Egyptian belief. Each of the 30 holes in the board represents one of the stages of this journey: from death to judgment to final union with the sun god Ra. Senet was popular in ancient Egypt for 3,000 years, from the beginning of the Old Kingdom (2600 B.C.E.)—the time of the first pyramid builders—through the Roman period (350 C.E.), and a variation of it is still played today by Bedouin in the Sinai and Negev.
Numerous ancient game boards and pieces—made of everything from ivory and alabaster to field stones and tiles—have been found in excavations throughout Israel. The earliest board games from Israel date to the third millennium B.C.E. and parallel boards from other ancient Near East sites from the seventh millennium B.C.E. Michael Saban of the Israel Antiquities Authority classifies board games in four general categories: games of chance, such as backgammon and Senet; positioning games, like tic-tac-toe; war games, such as chess and checkers; and games of logic.1 Some games require strategy, others just luck and many a combination of the two. According to Saban, the popularity of game boards throughout history is connected to the simplicity of their rules, with some—such as Senet—even having spiritual significance.
A. Hairbrush without bristles
B. Philistine jewelry mold
C. Sumerian pegboard
D. Fossilized honeycomb
E. Game board
066Answer: (E) Game board
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Lawrence E. Stager, “Chariot Fittings from Philistine Ashkelon,” in Seymour Gitin, J. Edward Wright and J.P. Dessel, eds, Confronting the Past: Archaeological and Historical Essays on Ancient Israel in Honor of William G. Dever (Winona Lake, IN:Eisenbrauns, 2006), pp. 169–176. See also Trude Dothan and Alexandra S. Drenka, “Linchpins Revisited,” in J. David Schloen, ed., Exploring the Longue Durée: Essays in Honor of Lawrence E. Stager (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), pp. 97–101.
