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Senet game

-1400/-1200

British Museum

British Museum
London, United Kingdom

Ivory game-board/box for senet. This rectangular games box is formed from a hollowed out block of wood, which has been fitted with a drawer (its back wall restored), with a wooden floor and decorative walls, to contain the gaming pieces. A bolt on the front of the drawer, held by two copper rings, can be passed through an identical ring at either side of the box's front in order to hold the drawer closed. The back of the box has also been restored, but its long walls and its top surface have been faced with a decorative material, the latter divided by ridges into thirty hollow squares arranged in three columns of ten. The underside of the box is of plain wood marked in ink with a system of twenty squares; twelve in a single central column, flanked at each side from squares nine to twelve by four squares. Only the two corner squares, and a long plain section at one side of the central column (level with squares one to eight), are still faced with this decorative material.

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  • Title: Senet game
  • Date Created: -1400/-1200
  • Physical Dimensions: Height: 4.50cm; Width: 28.00cm
  • External Link: British Museum collection online
  • Registration number: 1965,0213.1
  • Place: Found/Acquired Egypt
  • Period/culture: New Kingdom
  • Material: ivory; wood; copper
  • Copyright: Photo: © Trustees of the British Museum
  • Acquisition: Purchased from Sotheby's. Previous owner/ex-collection Hood, William Frankland. Previous owner/ex-collection Brummer, Ernest
British Museum

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