The game board has two sets of 29 holes. The pieces are his ten small sticks with jackal or dog heads. The game appeared around 2000 BC. It was popular in Egypt, especially in the Middle Kingdom. The 1956 film The Ten Commandments shows Pharaoh Sethi (Cedric Hardwick) and Nefretiri (Anne Baxter) playing a game.
Story :
Hounds and Jackals, also known as 58 Holes, is a famous Bronze Age board he game invented in ancient Egypt 4,000 years ago.
William Mathew Flinders Petrie first discovered the game and published it in 1890. Since then, over 60 copies of his game have been found in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Israel, Syria, Iran, Azerbaijan, the Levant and the Mediterranean.
A 2013 survey of his 68 boards in the Middle East suggests that the game began around 1950 BC. It was transmitted from Egypt to central Anatolia through trade relations, and then to Mesopotamia through trade. By contrast, this game was invented around 1980 BC. It was transferred to Nubia by conquest and to the Levant by trade and/or conquest at an as yet unknown date. Sticks were made of expensive materials such as ivory, silver and gold, based on finds in some archaeological sites. Wood was also used to make ordinary nails, but no such example would have survived.
Discovered by British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1910, this complete set of Egyptian games is now on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Surname :
The original name of this game is unknown. Different archaeologists use different names.
The game was nicknamed "Hounds and Jackals" by Carter because of the decorative shape of the pins. One player's pin was carved in the shape of a dog and the other player's pin was carved in the shape of a jackal.
The game was named 58 Holes by William Mathew Flinders Petrie because there are 58 holes on the board (29 holes on each side).
"Shen" is a less common name for this game. Some of the boards found were carved with Egyptian hieroglyphs around large holes. This game is also called "palm game" because some of the holes are replaced with wooden dolls.
Rule :
The game is played with two players. There are two sets of his 29 holes on the game board. The pieces are his ten small sticks with jackal or dog heads. One player gets 5 jackal heads, and his other player gets 5 dog heads. The object of the game might have been to start at one point on the board and move all the pieces to another point on the board. The hole at the top of the board is slightly larger than the others and is acceptable as the player's end point.
Similarities to other board games :
Hounds and Jackals have similar characteristics to other old board games. Hounds and Jackals, Twenty Squares, or Royal Game of Ur and Senet are similar. All racing games for 2 players. Compared to Senet, both were found in Egyptian tombs and dated to the 3rd millennium BC. Dated to 1000 BC, sticks were also used.
As a game of Hounds and Jackals, Twenty Squares was widely distributed in other regions such as Israel, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria and Cyprus. The game rules are the same.
Like Hounds and Jackals, whoever reaches the finish line wins the game. The game also uses dice, stones, or other game pieces to determine who starts first.
You must be logged in to post a comment.