Talking Pyramids

The ancient Egyptian game of Aseb, also known as ‘The Twenty Squares game’ is one of the oldest known games dating back to about 3000 BC. Boards from the 17th Dynasty have been found, evidence that the game was played for thousands of years.

It is sometimes found on the underside of Senet boards and played with Senet pieces. At some point in history the two games merged and led to the development of Backgammon.

Aseb’s similarities to the Sumerian ‘Royal Game of Ur’ suggest that it may have been imported from Mesopotamia by the Hyksos.

Royal Game Of Ur - photo by Ancient Game Cupboard

Ancient Sumerian Royal Game of Ur in the British Museum - Photo by Liopic

Play the Ancient Egyptian game of Aseb by clicking on the image below:

Download the Game of 20 Squares by P.S. Neely

Links:
The Online Guide to Traditional Games
Download the Aseb PDF from ‘Board Game Geek’.
More Ancient Egyptian Games
Purchase Ancient Egyptian Games online

Previous Ancient Egyptian Games articles:
Ancient Egyptian Games: Senet
Ancient Egyptian Games: Hounds & Jackals
Ancient Egyptian Games: Mehen

Related posts:

1. Ancient Egyptian Games: Mehen Faulkner’s Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian gives the translation of...
2. Ancient Egyptian Games: Hounds & Jackals Hounds and Jackals is a bit like Senet but instead...
3. Ancient Egyptian Games: Senet Games were, and still are, very popular in Egypt. Today...
4. Ancient Egyptian Games: Online For the final post in the series on Ancient Egyptian...
5. Death in Sakkara – An Egyptian Adventure The BBC have an adventure game available to play online...

Tags: games

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 3:08 am and is filed under Entertainment, Interactive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.