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Hounds & Jackals board game, made of ivory and ebony

Middle Kingdom, reign of Amenemhat IV, c. 1814–1805 B.C.

From the debris within Pit tomb CC 25, Thebes. Carnarvon and Carter excavations, 1910.

▫ Imagine two players seated on cool stone floors, their laughter echoing softly through a Theban chamber. Each holds five slender pegs: one set crowned with the heads of hounds, the other with the sleek profiles of jackals. Before them lies a wooden board pierced with fifty-eight tiny holes, the path of a race from beginning to triumph.

Known to archaeologists as the “Game of Fifty-Eight Holes” but more romantically dubbed Hounds and Jackals, this was one of the great amusements of the Middle Kingdom. The players advanced their pieces by the throw of knucklebones, their little beasts darting along the track towards a single winning hole at the summit. Variants of the game continued into the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 B.C.), though examples are rarer, with more evidence of Senet being present; perhaps not due to waning popularity, but rather the uneven survival of objects in the archaeological record, which may simply veil how widely it was still enjoyed.

No one today knows the rules with certainty (they vanished with the last players nearly four thousand years ago) yet its charm remains. A landing upon a “good” (nefer) hole may have brought a leap ahead, while curved incisions hinted at short cuts or pitfalls, not unlike our modern Snakes and Ladders.

This particular board (Met Museum. 26.7.1287a–k), exquisitely fashioned of ivory and ebony, was unearthed at Thebes by Howard Carter in 1910, long before his legendary discovery of ’s tomb. The set once belonged to a person of rank, perhaps tucked into their tomb to provide entertainment in eternity, for even in death, an could not be expected to forgo a little friendly competition.

The choice of the name Hounds & Jackals is not without wit: both were creatures of the desert, quick, cunning, and symbolic of protection and passage between worlds. In their eternal game they race still, ivory against ebony, across fifty-eight small holes, a delightful echo of ancient leisure, poised between play and eternity.

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