Printable Senet Boards 2

Sorry for my minor absence, if that's what you call a little over a week without a post.  I'm sure I'll be able to give you longer and more unexplained hiatuses in the future, so don't feel disappointed if this one wasn't long enough for you, my faithful readers.  All six of you.

Baron vonKadreisehn has sent me a new bunch of themed senet boards, and frankly I think they put my own efforts squarely in their place.  He's granted kind permission for me to include them here, so get your printers heated up and pick your favourite from these three.

Post-Apocalyptic Senet Board
Baron vonKadreisehn explains: I'd recommend using bottlecaps as counters and bolts/nails/chicken bones (boiled clean) as "sticks".

Steampunk Senet Board
Baron vonKadreisehn beclaims: Good day sir, may I joyously present for your senet related appreciation a board based upon the theme of steampunkery!  May I recommend gears or small brass octopods as counters and possibly clockhands and slender brass nicknackery as sticks?  Splendid! ...if perhaps somewhat awkward to obtain.

Biomech Senet Board
A terrifying whisper permeates from places unknown: Greetingssss two-leg-meat, we the Hissnastypoids have sssubverted your feeble senet board to our biomechy-hivey based purposessss. We demand that as counters and sticksss you use ...pitiful human countersss and sticks (unless you can find nasssty biomech-y counters and sticks upon your worthlesss dirtball.)

Printable Senet Boards

As part of my quest to play more Senet, I mentioned last post that I'd make myself a Senet board to play on.  As such, I've thrown together a few printable boards that I think are worth sharing, and if they're not to anyone's taste I guarantee a full refund.

The first one is based on how, if I made a board from wood, it would look in my head before I ended up ruining a small pile of good wood and gluing my fingers to anything and everything in sight.  (All the images are clickable, so feel free to do just that.)

The next one is the board I'll actually be printing off for myself.  It's image conscious.  It's sleek and professional.  It's printer friendly.

Finally, just for the lulz, is one that isn't so much styled after ancient Egypt as a forgotten spaceborne race who left behind their own game that just so happened to be just like Senet.  Only made of alien rock and glass, obviously.

Feel free to use these and let me know how you get along with them in the comments.  Likewise, shout out if you've got any requests.

Senet

The Forgotten Egyptian Game

So, yesterday, my wife and I found ourselves unexpectedly visiting Cyfartha Castle.  "So, what does the industrialisation of Merthyr's iron and coal industries have to do with games and diversions?" you'd be correct to ask me.  Patience, young Padawan.

The museum had a small section dedicated to ancient Egyptian artifacts that the Edwardian and Victorian peoples took a great interest in, and that was excuse enough to have a kiosk running a touch-screen recreation of Senet, a curious little game that, apparently, we don't quite know the rules of.

The version we played was surprisingly polished, with a smooth and satisfying response to our tactile stimuli on the screen, and the computer did all the messy bits like throwing the sticks for us.  To explain that last part, the Egyptians didn't have dice.  Instead, they threw a bunch of sticks that could land one of two ways, giving a result between 0 and the number of sticks thrown, so in this case we got 0 to 5.  As my wife acutely observed, this meant a result different to just hurling a standard six-sided die, as the results would skew towards the middle results, with 0 and 5 being significantly less likely.

Senet plays quite like Backgammon, and despite the rules being a "best guess since we can't ask a dead culture", it plays to a reasonably satisfying standard.  Wikipedia — always a good standby to make me look more learned than I actually am — tells me both Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation and TV's Lost made reference to the game, but that doesn't incline me towards playing the former or sitting through the latter again, because if I missed it the first time, I guess it wasn't worth noting.

I can't find the exact version we played online, but if you want to give the game a try there's a fine page right here that demonstrates things pretty well.  Also, many modern publishers have jumped at the opportunity to produce their own versions, sometimes under names like King Tut's Game and Passing Through The Netherworld.  Personally, I think I'll see if I can tempt my good lady into a few more games on a mock-up board — it's not hard to make, being just three rows of 10 squares with 5 pawns apiece.  If that proves a hit, who knows?  I might just try making myself a set out of something more substantial.