AJA Online Publications: Book Review
Egyptian Games and Sports
By Joyce Tyldesley (Shire Egyptology 29). Princes Risborough, England, Shire
Publications 2007. Pp. 64, figs. 56. £6.99. ISBN 978-0-7478-0661-5 (paper).
This study of Egyptian games and sports is
an admirable addition to the Shire Egyptology
series, which, since 1984, has presented basic
and informative studies on fundamental as-
pects of ancient Egyptian civilization, including
material culture, archaeology, daily life, religion
and society, and art and architecture, as well as
historical exposition. The monographs in the
series, intended primarily for a popular audi-
ence, are presented in a highly readable style
without footnotes, although they do include
useful and informative bibliographies. Most are
written by experts in the particular subject, and
they include the essential issues and data, often
with insightful interpretations—making them
useful even in some measure to professional
scholars. Tyldesley is a well-regarded Egyptol-­
ogist whose other published works include
mostly popular studies on the status of women,
crime and punishment, and famous personages
(often queens), as well as erudite publications
on the art and archaeology of Middle Egypt
and the Nile Delta.
In this particular study, she turns to the
topic of games and sporting activities in an-
cient Egypt and does a commendable job in
identifying those that are the most prevalent
in Egyptian iconography and texts. As this is a
concise publication, one should not expect the
Copyright © 2010 by the Archaeological Institute of America
American Journal of Archaeology Book Review
scope of Decker’s Sport and Games of Ancient
Egypt (New Haven 1992), and certainly noth-
ing of his monumental Bildatlas zum Sport im
alten Ägypten (Leiden and New York 1994).
This volume includes an introductory chap-
ter followed by seven individual chapters on
different genres of sports and game activity.
Chapter 2 pertains to board games, includ-
114.2 (April 2010)
ing senet (“20-squares”) mehen, men, and the
“game of 58-holes” (also called “hounds
and jackals”). Chapter 3 presents non–board
games, including certain athletic activities,
bat-and-ball, marbles, alleged tipcat (called
“cat” or “cat and dog” in the United States),
and various children’s body games (e.g., spin-
ning, stick tossing), as well as toys, dolls, and
movable novelties. Chapter 4 describes a small
selection of athletic games: running (royal and
nonroyal), jumping, and pole climbing. Chap-
­ter 5 concerns the overarching topics of hunt-
ing, shooting, and fishing, including big game
hunts, archery and chariotry, horsemanship,
bullfighting, bull-leaping, and fishing and
fowling. Chapter 6 surveys a range of martial
arts—wrestling, stick fighting (fencing), and
boxing—while chapter 7 discusses water
sports, swimming, rowing, boat racing, and
fisherman’s jousting. In chapter 8, the author
considers acrobatics and dance, including
informal secular dance (professional and
nonprofessional), acrobatic dance, ritual
dance, dance by dwarves, and dance related
to childbirth.
In all the chapters, the author’s descrip-
tions and discourses are rather basic, often
without much elaboration, although they are
still acceptable and informative. One exception
occurs in chapter 7 regarding the so-called
fishermen’s jousting (52). Here, she devotes a
single paragraph of only seven lines without
mentioning the important underlying religious
and mortuary significance of this sportive
ritual. She would have been well served by
consulting Bolshakov (“The Scene of the
Boatmen Jousting in Old Kingdom Tomb Rep-
resentations,” Bulletin de la Société d’Égyptologie
de Genève 17 [1993] 29–39) on this ritual and
including it in her bibliography.
In the introduction she writes, “As the an-
cient Egyptians had no direct equivalents to our
modern words ‘game’ and ‘sport,’ it is not pos-
sible to state with any degree of certainty which
activities they themselves would have expect-
 ed to find included in this book” (8). In many
ways, her statement repeats an assertion first
made by Touny and Wenig (Der Sport im alten
Ägypten [Leipzig 1969]). Admittedly, one might
argue about what properly constitutes a “di-
rect equivalent.” However, as a specialist in
Egyptian games and sports, especially within
their ritualized settings, this reviewer would
contest both her assertions.
Regarding the notion of “game,” the verb
Hba (Hab in Old Egyptian), meaning “to play,”
was regularly nominalized to mean “play,
playing”; for example, spell 335 in the Coffin
Texts reads, “r dd ib.f pr.t m hrw Hab sn.<t>
Hms.t m sH” (in order that his heart might
cause a coming forth into the day, playing
senet, and sitting in a pavilion) (A. de Buck,
Coffin Texts. Vol. 4, Texts of Spells 268–354. OIP
67 [1951] 326e). Similarly, “ib. i wn Hr sšm Hba.f
r. i” (my heart is clever in guiding his play
against me) (P. Cairo JdE 58037, col. 2, line 2;
E. Pusch, Das Senet-Brettspiel im alten Ägypten.
Vol. 1. Münchener Ägyptologischen Studien 38
[1979] 395). Furthermore, Hba.t was a substan-
tive, specifically meaning “game.” In first tale
of Setne Khamwas (third century B.C.E.), the
senet game board was described in demotic as
a “game-box” (H.t n ir Hba.t)—literally, “box
for making a game” (1 Khamwas 4, 27–31; W.
Erichsen, Demotische Lesestücke. Vol. 1 [Leipzig
1937] 20–1).
For the notion of “sport,” DeVries analyzed
the lexicography for the word “sport” in his
seminal study on Egyptian sports and rec-
reation, “Attitudes of the Ancient Egyptians
Toward Physical Recreative Activities” (Ph.D.
diss., University of Chicago [1960] 157–69). He
showed how Newberry, Gardiner, Griffith, and
Davies had long ago recognized that the word
Hb—literally, “to catch”—conveyed the general
notion of sport, especially the wide variety
of sports in the marshes. Furthermore, texts
are explicit that when nobility engaged in Hb
(sport), they did so as a leisure activity with
American Journal of Archaeology Book Review
the expressed purpose of “taking recreation”
(sxmx-ib) or “amusing oneself” (sDAy-Hr) (DeVr-
ies [1960] 166). Indeed, the fen goddess Sekhet
was so closely associated with recreational
sporting activities of the marshes that scholars
have regularly translated her title nb.t Hb as
“Mistress of Sport” (DeVries [1960] 157–66, esp.
157 n. 1). In related fashion, Gardiner (Egyptian
Grammar. 3rd rev. ed. [London 1957] 591) rec-
ognized the substantive sxmx-ib as including
the meaning “sport” in the general sense of
2
recreation and diversion. As for the person
engaged in the sporting activity in the tomb
of Djehuty at el-Bersheh, his title included wa
wr Hb (the greatest of sport; literally, “the sole
great one of sport”), and elsewhere he was
specifically termed s n Hb (man of sport) (F.L.
Griffith and P.E. Newberry, El Bersheh. Pt. 2.
ASE 4 [London 1895] 23, 26 [respectively]).
About this term, DeVries wrote categorically,
“I do not see how the language could more
accurately express the idea of the English term,
‘a sportsman’” (DeVries [1960] 160).
Therefore, contrary to Tyldesley’s asser-
tions, the Egyptians did, indeed, recognize
the general terms and overarching concepts
of “sport” and “game,” and certainly it is pos-
sible to identify the activities they themselves
would have categorized under those terms and
hence would have expected to find included in
this book. In any event, the author has chosen
well those activities. Of all the sporting and
gaming activities she presents, probably only
those related to pure dance (ch. 8) are ones
the Egyptians would not have recognized as
sport and game per se. However, rhythmic
acrobatics and gymnastics, when not applied
to dance, could have functioned for the Egyp-
tians as a part of play or sport and are rightly
included.
Overall, the strength of this work is that
for key games and sports, it relies on the latest
research findings (with minimal lapses), and
it does not merely rehash older, unproductive
notions. Until recently, Egyptology seemed to
regard the study of games and sports as lacking
in relative importance, and the field seem-
ingly expressed the attitude that something
as ephemeral as play and recreation could
not be as significant as religious beliefs and
practices or royal ideology, imperial politics,
and the like. For that reason, older studies on
games and sports did not have a terrific impact.
However, in the last 20–30 years, scholars the
likes of DeVries, Decker, Kendall, Pusch, Tait,
and Wenig, as well as this writer and others,
have demonstrated that understanding how a
society plays and competes athletically reveals
as much about it as how it prays and makes
war. Indeed, the elemental notions that the
Egyptians applied to body movement in the
context of games, sports, and athletics reflect
directly on the larger subject of their concep-
tions about the human body, its movements
and manipulations, and their associated social
constructs and meanings, including religious
 rituals, dance, social initiation, rites of pas- ancient Egypt, and Tyldesley successfully taps
sage, military training, medical therapies, and into this idea in her book.
displays of royal and divine power. Hence,
Peter A. Piccione
we now appreciate that board games, gam-
ing, and athletics have direct connections to history department
religious practices and celebrations, as well college of charleston
as to the cult of royal ideology. The inclusion university of charleston, south carolina
of games and sports for adults and children in charleston, south carolina 29424
religious festivals and in political displays says piccionep@cofc.edu
something important about life and society in
American Journal of Archaeology Book Review