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".
Multiplication table
The oldest known multiplication tables were used by the Babylonians about 4000 years ago. However, they used a base of 60. The oldest known tables using a base of 10 are the Chinese decimal multiplication table on bamboo strips dating to about 305 BC, during China's Warring States period.
The multiplication table is sometimes attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras (570–495 BC). It is also called the Table of Pythagoras in many languages (for example French, Italian and Russian), sometimes in English. The Greco-Roman mathematician Nichomachus (60–120 AD), a follower of Neopythagoreanism, included a multiplication table in his "Introduction to Arithmetic", whereas the oldest surviving Greek multiplication table is on a wax tablet dated to the 1st century AD and currently housed in the British Museum.