Ancient Egyptian board game "Hounds and jackals" traced to Asia

New research sheds light on the origins of ancient Egypt's most famous board game, "Hounds and Jackals." Although this game was popular in Egypt about 4,000 years ago, the latest discoveries suggest that its roots may go back to southwestern Asia. Researchers say such games could have played an important role in intercultural and social contacts in those regions.

Archaeologists discovered rock-carved boards resembling this ancient game in the southern Caucasus region in present-day Azerbaijan. Dated to around 2000 BCE, these discoveries suggest that "Hounds and Jackals" could have been popular among the cattle herders of that part of the world then.

Notably, this period is close to the date of the oldest known copy of this game, found in the tomb of an Egyptian official who lived between 2064 and 1952 BCE.

Scientists point out that in ancient times, some board games were particularly popular in certain regions. This phenomenon could have facilitated bond-building between cultures with regular contacts. As researchers explain:

The game of fifty-eight holes probably served this purpose in the second millennium BCE in Egypt and south-western Asia, because it was the only game played throughout the region.

The game was played by two players who used figurines shaped like dog or jackal heads, moving them across a board with holes. The board contained two parallel rows of ten holes each, and an arc made up of 38 holes, totalling fifty-eight holes. The objective of the game was to move the pieces to the end of the track as quickly as possible, similar to modern games like "Snakes and Ladders" or "Ludo."

Various versions of this game have been discovered over more than a thousand years, suggesting that it was popular from the Bronze Age through the Iron Age. So far, archaeologists have found around 70 boards in an area encompassing Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Iran, and Anatolia.

Recent discoveries add six new boards to this list, found at archaeological sites in Azerbaijan, in the towns of Ağdaşdüzü, Çapmalı, Yeni Türkan, and Dübəndi. The boards from Ağdaşdüzü are dated to the second millennium BCE, while the others could date from the late third millennium to early second millennium BCE.

A publication in the European Journal of Archaeology indicates the game's possible origin in southwestern Asia, not—as previously thought—in Egypt. The findings suggest that the shores of the Caspian Sea were part of a larger cultural network than previously assumed, and the game might have contributed to strengthening ties between societies in this region.

Whatever the origin of the game of fifty-eight holes, it was quickly adopted and played by a wide variety of people, from the nobility of Middle Kingdom Egypt to the cattle herders of the Caucasus, and from the Old Assyrian traders in Anatolia to the workers who built Middle Kingdom pyramids – researchers write.

The rapid spread of the game shows that board games could have functioned as a sort of "social lubricants," facilitating contact between different social strata. The game connected not only different cultures but also people from various social groups, making it not just entertainment but also a tool of socialization in the ancient world.