Mehen (game)

Mehen

Mehen game with game stones, from Abydos, Egypt, 3000 BC, Neues Museum
Years active	dating from approximately 3000 BC and continues until the end of the Old Kingdom, around 2300 BC
Genres	Board game
Players	unknown
Playing time	unknown

Mehen in hieroglyphs
mḥn[1]

Mehen is a board game which was played in ancient Egypt. The game was named in reference to Mehen, a snake deity in ancient Egyptian religion.

History

Evidence of the game of Mehen is found from the Predynastic period dating from approximately 3000 BC and continues until the end of the Old Kingdom, around 2300 BC.^[2] Aside from physical boards, which mostly date to the Predynastic and Archaic periods, a Mehen board also appears in a picture in the tomb of Hesy-Ra, and its name first appears in the tomb of Rahotep. Other scenes dating to the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt and Sixth Dynasty of Egypt show people playing the game. No scenes or boards date to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt or New Kingdom of Egypt, and so it appears that the game was no longer played in Egypt after the Old Kingdom. It is, however, depicted in tombs of about 700, because the tomb decorations are copied from Old Kingdom originals.

Mehen also appears to have been played outside of Egypt. It appears alongside other boards displaying the game of senet at Bab 'edh Dhra^[3] and in Cyprus.^[4] In Cyprus, it sometimes appears on the opposite side of the same stone as senet, and those from Sotira Kaminoudhia, dating to approximately 2250 BC, are the oldest surviving double-sided boards known.^[5] Mehen survived in Cyprus longer than in Egypt, showing that the game was indigenized upon its adoption into the island's culture.

The rules and gameplay of Mehen are entirely unknown.

Equipment

In Egypt, the

• Phaistos Disc
• Senet
• Hyena chase, North African race game using near identical equipment

References