Sunday, December 14, 2008

Hounds and the Jackals



Hounds and Jackals is the oldest board game found from the First Kingdom. Today it might be the original "Game of the Goose" or "Snakes and Ladders". When I first read this I thought that it said "Chutes and Ladders". You play this game with five pieces per player and these pieces looked like hound and jackals heads on a stick. The object of the game is to roll the dice and try to get from the lowest numbered hole to the highest numbered hole (29th) first. Watch out for those special holes. Cobra heads are good and lizard tails are bad. The cobra head will give you an extra turn and those lizard tails move you back to the lizard's head. The first player to get into the cobra’s eye at the 29th hole on their side of the board is the winner of the race, and the other player must forfeit his piece. So you keep doing this till you capture all of your opponent's Doggie Popsicles. After you do this, you win. This game isn't as exciting as video games but of course the Egyptians didn't have video games so I would see why they would play it.

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