Ancient Games

Over the course of the first semester we were introduced to a various number of ancient games, these were The Royal Game of Ur, Senet, Duodecim Scripta and Hnefetafl.

The first ancient game that we were introduced to was The Royal Game of Ur, personally I found this the simplest ancient game that we have been introduced to. Ur can be played with either four sided dice or sticks, with the four sided dice are used you have to mark two of the corners. The aim of the game was to get all of your pieces, usually four to six pieces, off the board before the other player.

Senet was the second ancient game that we were introduced to, it symbolised the Egyptian journey to heaven. For this game you need four sided dice or sticks, depending on how many points are showing when you take your turn depends on how many spaces you can move one of your five pieces, also when a you move a certain amount of spaces you get a re-roll. The strange thing about Senet is that you cannot remove any pieces from play (unless they reach the end) instead they just swap places.

Duodecim Scripta was the next ancient game that we were shown, this game is played with two six sided dice. In this game you have six pieces which you have to get out of the starting area by rolling the corresponding number to what space they are on. Only once all of your pieces are out are you then allowed to move your pieces around the board. If you land on an opponents piece that piece is sent back to the start, but if you land on your own piece you can put those pieces together meaning that they could only be taken by a group of the same amount or more pieces. The winner is the player to get all their pieces of the board at the same time.

Hnefetafl was the last ancient game which we were introduced to, this game consists of one team starting in the middle of the board trying to get their king to the corner of the board. The other team starting at the side of the board trying to stop the king escaping. Instead of dice rolls pieces in this game can be moved as many spaces as you want in any one direction. Pieces can be taken by positioning two piece of the other team on opposite sides on the other teams pieces.

The ancient game which I enjoyed the most was hnefetafl so I will use this ancient game to iterate for my assignment.