Mehen, The Ancient Egyptian Serpent Game

A Reappraisal of the Evidence Set

Abstract

The Game of the Snake, the Serpent Game, or Mehen is a board game thought to have been played by ancient Egyptians throughout at least Dynasties 1–6. This paper identifies important inaccuracies and misunderstandings in the evidence and in prior works about Mehen from the mid-19th–21st centuries, many of which have been propagated for decades, and attempts to clarify them while also assessing new developments from a ludological perspective.

Newly interpreted archaeological evidence is incorporated from the tombs of Rashepses and Hesy at Saqqara, and from the pyramid complex of Sahure at Abusir. Furthermore, the paper provides new insights into Mehen boards held in international collections, including the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Petrie Museum, London, and the Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin, plus observations regarding the board fragments discovered in the tomb of Peribsen in 1905. A variety of minor clarifications regarding game piece finds and texts are also identified.

The evidence set is significantly changed and notably more consistent once the findings in this article are incorporated. From a ludological perspective, the changes represent a crucial shift and should allow future researchers to present much stronger arguments for theories of game-play.