Mehen (game)

Mehen is a board game that was played in ancient Egypt, taking its name from Mehen, a coiled snake deity of ancient Egyptian religion whose form the playing board itself resembles. Surviving boards are carved in a flat spiral divided into rectangular segments representing the body of the snake, and archaeological evidence places the game from the Predynastic period through the end of the Old Kingdom, roughly 3000 to 2300 BC. The exact rules of play have not survived, and the number of players and the movement of pieces around the spiral remain uncertain to researchers.