Strata: What Is It?

A. Hairbrush without bristles

B. Philistine jewelry mold

C. Sumerian pegboard

D. Fossilized honeycomb

E. Game board

Answer: (E) Game board

Board games, like the Senet board pictured on page 20, have been a popular form of entertainment across cultures for millennia. This particular game board came from Tel Arad in Israel and dates to the Early Bronze Age (c. 2500 B.C.E.). It was used for the Egyptian game Senet—the game of 30 houses—that reflects the journey of the soul in the afterlife according to Egyptian belief. Each of the 30 holes in the board represents one of the stages of this journey: from death to judgment to final union with the sun god Ra. Senet was popular in ancient Egypt for 3,000 years, from the beginning of the Old Kingdom (2600 B.C.E.)—the time of the first pyramid builders—through the Roman period (350 C.E.), and a variation of it is still played today by Bedouin in the Sinai and Negev.