Dec 20, 2025·How to play·20:19·739·Watch on YouTube

Mehen | The Oldest Game Known| Rules | History | Strategy #egyptianhistory

The Gaming Bench

Watch “Mehen | The Oldest Game Known| Rules | History | Strategy #egyptianhistory,” a how-to-play guide for Mehen from The Gaming Bench on BoardGameVideo.

Description provided by The Gaming Bench on YouTube:

Mehen is an ancient Egyptian race game that may be the oldest board game ever discovered, dating back to 3000BCE — more than 5000 years ago! It tells the story of how Mehen, the snake god, protects Ra and helps the dead reach the afterlife. Learn the rules and strategy of the game and play like an Egyptian! See me build my own mehen set: https://youtu.be/qI9t2mrWIIU www.thegamingbench.com Want to support the channel? Drop me a couple bucks at https://buymeacoffee.com/thegamingbench. Thanks! PHOTO CREDITS Abydos Spiel der Schlange mehen board CC BY 3.0 Anagoria - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Anagoria Ra solar barque CC BY 2.0 Jean-Pierre Dalbéra flickr.com/photos/72746018@N00 Mehen game board from the tomb of Seth Peribsen in Abydos, on display at the Louvres museum. CC BY-SA 3.0 Iry-Hor https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Iry-Hor Snake board. Early dynastic. Egyptian Museum (Cairo), main floor, room 43, Limestone board JE 27354 from Qift. CC BY-SA 4.0 Ovedc https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ovedc Egyptian Museum (Cairo) mehen pieces CC BY-SA 4.0 Ovedc https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ovedc Petrie Museum limestone serpent game board CC BY-SA 3.0 BabelStone https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:BabelStone Old Egyptian serpent game CC BY-SA 2.0 Rob Koopman https://www.flickr.com/people/38483926@N07 Hesy-Ra panel CC BY-SA 4.0 Djehouty https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Djehouty Nile turtle CC BY-SA 3.0 Maria Jonker https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Kjf_webmaster "Game of the Snake" (Mehen) with gamestones; Limestone; Early Dynastic Period (ca. 3.000 BC) CC BY 3.0 Anagoria https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Anagoria Sarcophagus (ca. 1950-1900 BC). Wood, 12th Dynasty. From Assiut. CC BY-SA 3.0 Anonymous - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Aoineko Faience canopic jar shaped as Duamutef guardian of the stomach from Sedment in Lower Egypt 19th Dynasty 1250 BCE Penn Museum CC BY-SA 4.0 Mary Harrsch https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mharrsch Stela, from Thebes, Egypt. 8th to 4th century BCE. CC BY-SA 4.0 Dr. Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Neuroforever Maat CC BY 3.0 Nitko https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Gospodar_svemira&action=edit&redlink=1 Early medieval gaming piece CC BY-SA 4.0 Oxfordshire County Council, Anni Byard, 2014-06-17 13:05:13 https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/622619 Saqqara - Pyramid of Djoser complex - Heb-sed Court CC BY-SA 2.0 Lansbricae https://www.flickr.com/photos/31546678@N00/ MUSIC CREDITS Master of the Feast by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1400019 Artist: http://incompetech.com/ Brandenburg Concerto No4-1 BWV1049 - Classical Whimsical by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100303 Artist: http://incompetech.com/ REFERENCES Publications * De Buck, Adriaan. The Egyptian Coffin Texts I: Texts of Spells 1-75, The University of Chicago Oriental Institute Publications Vol. XXXIV, 1935 * De Buck, Adriaan. The Egyptian Coffin Texts VI: Texts of Spells 472-786, The University of Chicago Oriental Institute Publications Vol. XXXIV, 1935 * Faulkner, R.O. The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts Vol. I Spells 1-354, Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1973 * Faulkner, R.O. The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts Vol. II Spells 355-787, Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1977 * Kendall, Timothy. “Mehen - The Ancient Egyptian Game of the Serpent.” Ancient Board Games in Perspective: Papers from the 1990 British Museum Colloquium, with Additional Contributions, edited by Irving Finkel, British Museum Press, 2007, pp. 33-45 * Knight, Hugh T. Jr. Pastimes with Good Company: European Games from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Lulu.com, 2022 * Livingstone, Ian; Wallis, James. Board Games in 100 Moves, DK, 2019 * Parlett, David. Parlett’s History of Board Games. Echo Point Books & Media, 2018 * Rothohler, Benedikt. (1999). “Mehen, God of the Boardgames.” International Journal for the Study of Board Games, Volume 2. http://bgs.ludicum.org/pdf/issue2/BGS2Rothoehler.pdf Videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf6mWq5BtMs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCUIv0uvV2M WEBSITES https://a4gamescompany.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/mehen-pdf-9.1mb.pdf https://www.mastersofgames.com/rules/mehen-rules.htm?srsltid=AfmBOorlWbzPohpKOK0yd67rN0Us6_z_d4y9Y5ePLHmK-5B34w7HxweW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Dead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehen_(game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehen https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z6-KPUyglJKulj2G6E8oPw6vu8ot1nNm/edit Timecodes 00:00 - Intro 00:39 - Board & pieces 01:22 - Rules 08:04 - History 11:47 - About Egyptian spells 18:34 - Strategy 19:55 - Wrap-up

Mehen

Mehen

2 - 6 players

20 min

About Mehen, from BoardGameGeek:

In the 1920s, anthropologists, explorers and adventurers found a curious spiral-tracked game being played by the Baggara Arabs of the Sudan -Li'b el Merafib, "The Hyena Game". In all essential details the "Hyena Game" seems to have been identical to the Ancient Egyptian game of Mehen (The Game of the Coiled One). The board's shape suggests it may be a distant ancestor of the Game of Goose but the mechanics are so different that this is probably a coincidence. It was played on a spiraling track, employed stick dice (throwing sticks) of precisely the kind known from Archaic Egyptian contexts, and had two types of pieces, one representing a predatory animal. The only difference would seem to be that the ancient Egyptians allotted six counters to each player rather than only one. The Cretan Phaistos Disc may have been a Mehen board, but that remains speculation. Mehen is the only multi-player ancient Egyptian board game known, the others (Senet, Aseb, Hounds & Jackals, etc.) being all two-player games. The main function of the serpent-shaped Egyptian god Mehen was to protect the sun-god Ra from his enemies by coiling around him. In the Old Kingdom, the race-game Mehen took the name and shape of the god: a coiled serpent with the gaming spaces on its back. As "bodyguard", Mehen symbolises the sun-god's immediate neighborhood for the deceased. The deceased walks towards Ra on the back of the serpent-god. By the early Middle Kingdom, the 'cuts' used on the snake's back of the Mehen board to separate the playing spaces were thought to 'kill' the snake -which would have been a very threatening and evil thing. Mehen's role was essential, for if Ra were not protected from his enemies, he might not rise in the morning, which would result in the cessation of all life. In Egyptian belief, 'life' applied not only to the living but also to the dead, who were believed to travel with the sun and to rise, reborn, with him at dawn. From that time forth, the game apparently ceased to be played, possibly banned and forbidden.

Artist

David McCord

Categories

Abstract StrategyRacing

Mechanics

Dice RollingRoll and Move

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