Q&A for How to Play Senet

You can only move side to side when you are at the end of a row. And you don't necessarily 'bump' other people, but you can capture them. In chess, you can physically 'bump' a piece off a square if it is captured, and I suppose you could do that with Senet, but that's not technically how it's done.

A stationery store or office supplies store or maybe a crafts store. You just need paper, colored pencils, a black fine-tipped marker, and craft sticks.

They are tossed in the air. They spin sometimes, and they'll land on one side.

The drawings are hieroglyphs that represents each house. Each symbol stands for a different word.

After a piece is captured, it must go back to where you were at the beginning of your turn. So technically, you can be released, if you can manage to catch up to the person.

You could, but that would likely require a somewhat larger board (depending on how detailed you make it). Or, if you wanted a wider range of special houses, then you would be required to design your own. Ancient Egyptians may have had some others, but all references we have found have pointed towards there just being the ones shown on this page.

Only two players.

Yes, you can. They have them on Amazon and a lot of other online shopping websites.

There are multiple meanings of "senet", but in the Egyptian game, it means "the game of passing".

They are small, rectangular pieces and are handheld.

This is one of the simpler versions. However, senet boards are a lot like decks of cards; you can play many different games on them.

They do not have a name. The ancient Egyptians may have called them something, but we do not know.

No, because even if you draw different colors on each half of the lollipop stick, it would be hard to determine what color it is, since a lollipop stick has no flat surfaces. Popsicle sticks are preferred.

You can absolutely make all the pieces different. Just make sure you can tell which pieces belong to which teams. My kids used to play this while camping. One kid would collect stones for her pieces and the other would collect bits of wood. We've also used chess pieces.

White or yellow would be a good contrast to black. Really anything other than black would work, you just need to be able to tell them apart.

Clay, wood, or an old shoe box. Most people make them out of paper, then draw the shapes/symbols. Making them with clay is my favorite way, because it looks like a real senet board from ancient Egypt.

They all go on at the same time. That's part of the set-up for the game. Then you can start the game.

It is the place where you go after you die in Senet. It is a place where rebirth occurs.

Refer to article Make a Senet Board .

This house is usually named the House of Re-Horakty or the House of Horus.

The original rules were never found, so many people have their own ideas on how the game used to be played. But, all of the games have the same layout 3 rows of 10 squares. So yes, there are many different ways you may choose to play Senet.

The drawings are hieroglyphs that represents each house, each symbol stands for a different word.

They are small, rectangular pieces and are handheld. They are tossed in the air. They spin sometimes, and they'll land on one side.

You don’t stop throwing your stick in senet unless you lose a turn and aren’t on the hieroglyphs.

Pieces cannot be stacked in senet. You can only capture an opposing piece if it's not protected.

Some people got together to try to reconstruct the rules by looking at some ancient Egyptian pictures of Senet.