Senet is one of the oldest board games in the world — Egyptian sets date to ~3500 BCE, well before written rules. Played on a 30-square board (3 rows × 10 columns), each side races pieces from start to bear-off while landing on (or avoiding) the special end-of-board "Houses". The exact rules are partially reconstructed from tomb paintings and scribal references.
Each player has 5 pieces starting on alternating squares of the top row (Amber on 1, 3, 5, 7, 9; Slate on 2, 4, 6, 8, 10). Cast 4 binary throwsticks instead of dice: each painted side counts 1, so a throw scores 1–4, and an all-plain throw scores 6. Throwing a 1, 4, or 6 earns an extra turn. Pieces snake across the three rows — right along the top row, left along the middle, right along the bottom — then bear off the end. Land on an unprotected single enemy piece to swap places with it; a piece is protected when a friendly piece sits on an adjacent square (or it rests on a safe house), and three enemy pieces in a row form a blockade you cannot pass. The special houses near the end matter: the House of Rebirth (square 15) is safe and receives pieces knocked into the water; every piece must stop on the House of Beauty (square 26) before continuing; the House of Water (square 27) sends a piece back to rebirth; and the final squares 28, 29, and 30 require an exact roll of 3, 2, or 1 to bear off. First to bear off all five pieces wins.
Tomb paintings, scribal references, and a 13th-century BCE papyrus describing late-period Senet. The specific values of throwsticks and special-square rules are partial reconstructions; multiple variants exist.
Egyptians believed playing Senet helped the deceased navigate the afterlife — many tombs include Senet boards as funerary equipment. The "Beautiful House" represents passage to the afterlife.
Same family of race games, but Senet runs along a single winding track of 30 squares with special protected "houses" and throwstick rolls instead of dice. Senet predates Backgammon by ~3000 years; modern reconstructions show how the family evolved.
10–15 minutes once the special-square rules are clear.
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