Senet was the much-loved board game of the ancient Egyptians. In this step-by-step tutorial, you will learn how to make a Senet board with household materials for you to play Senet at home with your friends and family.
Steps
Part 1
Part 1 of 3:
Covering the box
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Prepare the workspace. It's recommended that you put newspaper on your working space, to protect it from glue and paint.
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Place the shoe box (with its lid) on a flat work surface. Wrap it with newspaper, making sure to cover every little bit of the box. Make sure that the newspaper sits tightly, then stick it down with some tape.Advertisement
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Wrap one more layer of newspaper around the box and secure with some tape.
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Tear the paper towels into strips. Soak the strips in the tub of PVA. Drape the soaked strips over all parts of the box until it is fully covered. Let it stand to air dry.Advertisement
Part 2
Part 2 of 3:
Painting the box
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Make the paint color. Once the paper strips have dried, mix the yellow and brown paint on the palette to get a uniform, nice shade of yellow-brown/light brown colour. This might take a while, so keep combining until you like the color.
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Paint the box. Using the paintbrush, apply the light brown paint on one face of the box at a time. Leave in a safe place with sunlight to air dry.Advertisement
Part 3
Part 3 of 3:
Making the Senet board
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Once the paint has dried, begin adding the board markings. Rule three rows and 10 columns on one broad side of the box, using a pencil.
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Go over the pencil lines with a black pen or felt-tip marker. Keep using a ruler to keep your lines straight.
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Draw the symbols. With pencil, draw in the following symbols:
- In the second/middle row, sixth column from left, draw an ankh sign (symbol of life).
- In the last row, sixth column from left, draw a bird in the Ancient Egyptian style.
- In the last row, seventh column from left, draw three parallel waves.
- In the last row, eighth column from left, draw three dots (like an upside down "therefore" symbol).
- In the last row, ninth column from left, draw an eye of Horus.
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Go over the penciled in symbols in paint. Using a thin paintbrush, paint over the ankh symbol in blue paint, the bird in red, the waves and the dots in blue and the eye of Horus in red.
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Decorate the sides of the box with ancient Egyptian symbols and designs. Once done, the Senet game board is now ready for playing Senet.Advertisement
Community Q&A
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QuestionI drew the lines with paint. Will this affect the game, or how its made?Community AnswerNo, The game will work just the same with paint, but the details may be a little more sloppy.
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QuestionCan I make a senet board without newspaper?Community AnswerYes. Instead of newspaper, you could use papier-mâché or even plain wrapping paper.
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QuestionWhat can I use if I don't have a shoe box?Community AnswerIf you don't have a shoe box, use any box that is about the same size. Even a cereal box can work if it is big enough.
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Video
Tips
- Look online for the symbols if you're not sure what they are.Thanks
- Instead of the light brown paint, you can just apply gold paint, if you can find gold color that is suitable for paper and it fits within your budget.Thanks
- You can substitute paper towels with toilet rolls. This is a price-saver trick, as covering the box only requires a few layers of toilet roll. You can also substitute the light brown paint with a natural or light pinkish colour as well as gold. Your palette can just be a plastic tray or you can mix colours by putting paint on your newspaper, then you can mix paint straight off the newspaper.Thanks
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Things You'll Need
For the board :
- 1 shoe box or a box measuring approximately 30 centimeter (11.8 in) length, 12 centimeter (4.7 in) depth & 12 centimeter (4.7 in) width
- Newspaper
- Masking tape
- Paper towels
- Tub of watered down PVA art glue
- Acrylic paint (essential colours are brown, yellow, blue & red)
- Thick paintbrush and thin paintbrush
- Mixing palette
- Pencil
- Black pen or felt-tip pen
About this article
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 32,256 times.
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