Ancient Egypt

To contemporary ears, the notion of “play in ancient Egypt” sounds contradictory. The nearly ubiquitous image of ancient stonemasons slavishly constructing pyramids without the use of modern tools while at the behest of whip-wielding overlords appears incommensurable with concepts such as amusement or recreation. Nevertheless, ancient Egyptians enjoyed a variety of leisure activities including games, sports, songs, and dance. Evidence culled from archaeological remains, reliefs, and papyri attest to the importance of “play” in everyday Egyptian life.

Play is a culturally conditioned phenomenon that denotes a variety of activities pursued recreationally for amusement. To write about play in ancient Egypt [Page 26]requires one to import modern concepts into antiquity and extrapolate from static evidence. Such a process potentially distorts the data by forcing it to conform to one's own expectations, but that is all that a scholar can do. Ancient Egypt is a distant and foreign past, and one must keep in mind that much of its cultural interworkings have been lost in the Egyptian sands of time.

Regarding social class, play appears to be a predominantly elite activity; ancient Egypt was no exception. Only those with excess time had the means and liberty to pursue activities of leisure. Within the highly stratified Egyptian society, lower classes worked longer hours, had access to very limited resources, and were expected to conform to the regnant status quo. Life in Egypt (especially during the early periods) was highly structured; craftsmen and their families lived in enclosed communities near their work sites, worked tediously long hours, and had little time for recreation. This is not to say that farmers and laborers did not play. To the contrary, evidence suggests that the lower classes' play probably consisted of less formal activities, used fewer and simpler props, and probably occurred with less frequency than did the play of those with means. Of course the upper divisions of Egyptian society—the pharaohs, courtiers, and other high-ranking officials—enjoyed ornate games in a variety of venues.

Perhaps the most famous example of Egyptian play is Senet. Omnipresent in reliefs, papyri, and etchings, this board game played a central role in royal life. The game consisted of a board divided into a gridlike pattern of square spaces. A player moved his or her game pieces along the board in an attempt to reach the finish before his or her opponent. No intact rule books survive, however, so scholarly speculation accounts for most reconstructions of Senefs rules and procedure. Excavators found numerous Senet boards in King Tut's tomb and in the tombs of most of Egypt's other wealthy kings.

Most of what is known of Egyptian play and sports is from the information found in tombs, iike wall reliefs and papyri.

Likewise, cruder examples survive where stones function as game pieces and a hand-scratched piece of flat wood or rock serves as the board. Such evidence suggests that lower classes probably enjoyed Senet as well. Other Egyptian board games survive, but even less is known about them than about Senet. Taw, an imported amusement during the late Middle Kingdom era, as well as the six-person game Mehen, both use elaborately crafted animal-shaped game pieces on boards, variously arranged in rows and columns of squares. In short, ancient Egyptians enjoyed board games in much the same way today's society does.

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