First board game

The earliest recorded board game is Senet, or “Passing”. Early Senet boards have been found in Pre-dynastic and First Dynasty tombs in at Abydos and Saqqara in modern-day Egypt dating to 3500 and 3100 BCE. The game, representing the journey to reunite with the Sun god, involved two players moving their group of up to seven pieces along a board made up of three rows of 10 squares. The player who was able to get their pieces past their opponent’s and off the board was the winner. The game designer Jane McGonigal speculates in Reality is Broken that more primitive mancala counting games that did not require a formal board possibly predates Senet. However, there is no conclusive written or archaeological evidence to prove this.