Senet
Senet is one of the oldest known board games. Fragmentary boards that could be senet have been found in First Dynasty burials in Egypt, c. 3100 BC. A hieroglyph resembling a senet board appears in the tomb of Merknera (3300–2700 BC). The first unequivocal painting of this ancient game is from the Third Dynasty tomb of Hesy (c. 2686–2613 BC). People are depicted playing senet in a painting in the tomb of Rashepes, as well as from other tombs of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties (c. 2500 BC). The oldest intact senet boards date to the Middle Kingdom, but graffiti on Fifth and Sixth Dynasty monuments could date as early as the Old Kingdom.
At least by the time of the New Kingdom in Egypt (1550–1077 BC), senet was conceived as a representation of the journey of the ka (the vital spark) to the afterlife. This connection is made in the Great Game Text, which appears in a number of papyri, as well as the appearance of markings of religious significance on senet boards themselves. The game is also referred to in chapter XVII of the "Book of the Dead".
History of games
Chaturanga (which means 'quadripartite' and also 'army'), the predecessor of Chess, possibly developed in the Indian subcontinent or Central Asia during the Kushan (30–375 CE) or Gupta (320–550 CE) periods from an amalgamation of other game features and was transmitted to Sassanid Persia (where it was known as Shatranj) and China through the Silk Road. The oldest text to mention Chaturanga is the middle Persian work "Wizârîshn î chatrang ud nîhishn î nêw-ardakhshîr" (The explanation of Chatrang and the invention of Nard, c. 600 AD). This texts tells the arrival of Chatrang in an embassy from 'Hind' during the reign of Khosrau I (531–579). The name 'Hind' was often used to refer to eastern regions such as Balochistan. Another game named Chaturaji was similar but played with four sides of differing colors instead of two, however the earliest source for this four sided board game is Al-Biruni's 'India', circa 1030 AD. Historians of Chess such as Yuri Averbakh have surmised that the Greek board game "petteia" may have had an influence on the development of early Chaturanga. "Petteia" games could have combined with other elements in the Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek Kingdoms.