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".
Munsterbilzen Abbey
The sentence "Tesi samanunga vvas noble unde scona" ("This monastic community was noble and clean") plays an important role in the history of the Dutch language. The six words were added in 1130 under a list of names in the gospel of Munsterbilzen, a Carolingian manuscript. The gospel of Munsterbilzen also contains an Ordo Stellae (also called Officium Stellae), a three-kings game, which is considered to be the oldest play in the Netherlands. In December 2008, this precious codex threatened to be auctioned at the London auction house Sotheby's. Eventually, after much lobbying, the gospel libraries remained in possession of the Bollandists in Brussels, where it has been around since 1842.