A Brief History of ‘Senet’, The Game They Played On Lost
Published by Seth Quillen in: Television -- Date: 13 May 2010 Comments: 0
Senet was played in the episode of Lost, Across The Sea
Want to know more about Senet, the game Jacob played with his brother, the ”Man in Black”, on Lost in the episode Across The Sea. Hit the jump and add your oppion as to how it applies to the Lost mythology.
Senet may be the oldest board game in the world. It has been found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burials of Egypt, circa 3500 BC and 3100 BC respectively.
By the time of the New Kingdom in Egypt (1567–1085 BC), it had become a kind of talisman for the journey of the dead. Because of the element of luck in the game and the Egyptian belief in determinism, it was believed that a successful player was under the protection of the major gods of the national pantheon: Ra, Thoth, and sometimes Osiris.
The Senet gameboard is a grid of thirty squares, arranged in three rows of ten. A senet game has two sets of pawns (at least five of each and, in some sets, more).
The Egyptians associated Senet with the ritual of the netherworld journey. The netherworld was the underground realm of the dead. According to Egyptian belief, every day at sunset, the sun-god, Ra, descended into the earth, and he sailed or traveled through a series of caverns from west to east. Here he met other gods and the souls of the blessed dead. He fought off chaos, and at dawn he arose out of the ground in the east as the new-born sun at dawn. Also in the netherworld, newly dead persons were judged by Osiris. If they were found guilty of sin in their lives, they underwent excruciating tortures until their souls were finally annihilated. However, those found innocent of sin were permitted to rise out of the netherworld with Ra. They united to the sun god and became one with him achieving eternal life as the god himself.
The senet gaming ritual recreated the netherworld passage for the player. The Egyptians probably also incorporated the ritual into the mysterious rites of initiation of the Egyptian priesthood, since initiation rites also enacted some form of the netherworld journey for the initiates.
The Kendall Variant rules of the game. (created by Timothy Kendall)
The winner is the first player to move all his pawns off the board.
Each player receives seven pawns. The pawns of both players alternate along squares 1-14. The fifteenth square is treated as the starting square. Throw the four casting sticks to determine the move: each blank side up counts as one point. If all four marked sides come up, it counts as five points. Move one of your pawns a number of squares equal to the number of points you “rolled.”
If a pawn is moved to a square occupied by an opponent’s pawn, the moving pawn is placed in that square and the opponent’s pawn is placed in the square that pawn started the move from.
Certain squares have special effects on play:
The House of Rebirth – the starting square and the square pawns return to when landing on The House of Water.
The House of Happiness – all pawns finish a move here, even if they threw enough to move past it.
The House of Water – any pawn finishing a move on this square must go back to The House of Rebirth.
House of the Three Truths – a pawn landing here may only leave the board if a three is thrown.
House of Re-Atoum – a pawn landing here may only leave the board if a two is thrown.
