History
Evidence of the game of Mehen is found dating from approximately 3000 BC and continues until 2300 BC. Some of the best evidence appears during the Old Kingdom, in a picture in the tomb of Hesy-Ra. It is depicted in tombs of about 700 BC, but the board seems to have been misinterpreted as a vase, presumably because an Old Kingdom relief was copied by someone not familiar with the game itself.
It is known that the board depicts a game rather than being a religious object due to studies of paintings in tombs, and game boards and equipment found. None of the associated objects fit neatly within the segments of the snake. The rules and methods of play are completely unknown; a shareware computer program contains a guess at how it may have been played.
The relationship between the snake-god and the game is unknown.
Read more about this topic: Mehen (game)
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“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)