This is a senet board buried with King Tutankhamen and discovered 3000 years later by Howard Carter. Maybe King Tut was an avid senet player, and wanted to continue his enjoyment in the afterlife. There is also evidence that the game was considered a weapon in defeating one's enemies in the underworld and winning eternal life.

The board was found tossed into a pile of debris. But don't blame the ancient priests for this disarray! Contrary to popular belief, King Tut's tomb was not found intact. In ancient times, tomb robbers had broken in at least twice. Either they were interested only in large, portable gold pieces, or they were caught before they could get very far, because it is true that the robbers never penetrated the king's burial chamber, or the shrines or sarcophagi it contained. In the course of their ransacking the tomb, the robbers tossed "worthless" objects out of their way, which is how the board ended up in a pile of junk.

The board is inscribed with the name and titles of King Tut. You can't really make it out in the big picture, but his name is found in the area contained within the white circle. This image is an enhanced and magnified view of this area, showing his name in a royal cartouche. This is his "King of the Two Lands", or coronation, name, Nebkheprure nb-xpr.w-ra "Lord of Ra's creations". His "Son of Ra" name, given at birth, was Tutankhamen twt-anx-imn "Living image of Amun". Both names can be seen in the picture below, which is part of a chair back. Put your mouse over the glyphs in the cartouches to see their transcriptions (click here if the picture doesn't change).

The three lines of the plural marker don't really have any sound of their own; they just serve to show that the previous glyph xpr is plural, indicated by the .w. Note that the names are written right to left in the cartouches. Both names also exhibit "honorific transposition", where the names of the gods, Ra and Amun, are placed first in the composition, although they are not spoken first in the name. You might also have noticed that the first glyph in "Amun" is actually the sign for i, and that there is no sign for "u" in the name. The pronunciation Amun comes from the Greek rendering of the name, while the transcription is a product of Egyptologists in this century.

© 1999, Terrence Donnelly