Beyond King Tut - What is Senet?

Since we were going to the Del Mar Fairgrounds for some events anyway, we figured we would check out the Beyond King Tut exhibit put on by National Geographic.

The exhibit itself was disappointing and literally nauseating.  After a 5 minute short film it's just hallways full of text and photos and black lights that made our heads hurt.  The dizziness kicked in right away and by the time we got to the final room which had rippling, whizbang graphics on every surface (walls, floor, ceiling) we just wanted to get the hell out of there. 

There was not a single actual artifact in the exhibit, not even a pinky bone.  Just flash with no substance.  Nothing I have not heard or seen before.  Nothing we could not have seen in smaller form on Youtube.  I have no idea who the audience was, but I assume it was ADHD people with no ability to focus on things.

There was one game tie-in, though.  I have already covered some ancient games here.  Kudos for setting up two large-scale games of Senet to teach the game to people.  For scale, the pieces were the size of large soda cans and weighed a few ounces each.  They had a spinner from 1 to 6 and basic rules.  Nobody touched it while we were there except me, and we were fleeing for fresh air at the time.  Anyway, it was a lovely presentation of that game:

(Ironically, I feel the need to apologize for the terrible lighting...)

Then we turned around and saw a totally different board game on a projection on the wall.  Different game, which I covered here, which they also called Senet for some reason.

That is one beautiful artifact.  Or it would have been had they brought it with them.  But okay, it's a beautiful image of a beautiful artifact, but it is NOT Senet.  If I expected anything from a National Geographic presentation, I expected proper research.

Maybe they were just annoyed that this little piece of history has lost its proper name entirely across the centuries.  Everyone wants simple answers, and everything should have a name.  But, it would be fine to have a caption explaining what little we do know about it.

Also, sorry for the lighting.  Did they really not consider that some significant percent of the visitors are going to get instant vertigo or migraines from whatever the hell they did to the lights?

Still, a good little moment for game history. 

Back at the hotel room later on, we played some games of Yut and Puluc.  These ancient games still do play well, though we have made up modern rules for the ones that were lost.






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