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Hounds and Jackals

October 14, 2017 By Eli 5 Comments

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Hounds and Jackals is an Egyptian game, which came into existence in the Middle Kingdom, around the 9th Dynasty, circa 2135 – 1986 BCE. It is a racing game, in the same category as Senet, Aseb, and the Royal Game of Ur.

The game was originally discovered by William Mathew Flinders Petrie and published by him in 1890. Since then over 40 examples of the game have been found in Egypt, Israel, Syria, Iran and around the Levant and Mediterranean.

Game of Hounds and Jackals. Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12. Reign of Amenemhat IV. ca 1814–1805 BCE. Egypt, Thebes, pit tomb CC25. Ebony, Ivory. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - 26.7.128Game of Hounds and Jackals. Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12. Reign of Amenemhat IV. ca 1814–1805 BCE. Egypt, Thebes, pit tomb CC25. Ebony, Ivory. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York – 26.7.128

The original name of the game is unknown. Petrie called The Game of 58 Holes, since the game board that he found contained two sets of 29 holes. later, when Howard Carter discovered the fanciest known copy of the game, he called it The Game of Hounds and Jackals, since the playing pieces had heads of dogs and jackals on them. A third, least common, common name for the game was Shen for the Egyptian hieroglyph which was written on some of the examples, around the big hole at the top of the game.

Hounds and Jackals Game Board. Middle Kingdom, 11th Dynasty. Egypt, Thebes, Deir el-Bahri, Tomb TT 312 - Metropolitan Museum of Art - 26.3.154Hounds and Jackals Game Board. Middle Kingdom, 11th Dynasty. Egypt, Thebes, Deir el-Bahri, Tomb TT 312 – Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York – 26.3.154

The original rules for Hounds and Jackals are unknown. There have been many reconstruction attempts by historians and archaeologists, but most of them make a boring game. I have presented here two most interesting and challenging sets of rules, which make a really exciting game. The first set of rules was developed by a Russian game re-constructor Dmitriy Skiryuk (Дмитрий Скирюк) and originally published on his blog in three separate posts (1, 2, and in most detail 3), in Russian. I provided some of my clarifications regarding the options on what to do when reaching the last hole. The second set of rules, which is very different from Skiryuk’s, was published by a user Welsch Dragonfly (Donna Washburne) on Instructables.com.

Dmitriy Skiryuk’s Rules:

  1. Number of players is 2.
  2. The game includes the board of 58 holes arranged in two half loops, and the 59th large common hole, 5 jackal pieces, 5 hound pieces, and 4, two sided, throwing sticks are included in the game to serve as dice, with one side rounded and the other side flat.
  3. The movement across the board starts from holes #1 (A and A’) and each player continues on their side along their path until all pieces exit off the board from cell 30 (H). Usually, the hounds get the right side, when facing the rounded end (top on the diagram below), and the jackals get the left side (bottom on the diagram below).
  4. All 4 throwing sticks are thrown at the same time. The score is determined as follows:
    1. If one throwing stick landed on the flat side and the other three landed on the round side the score is 1.
    2. If two throwing sticks landed on the flat side and the other two landed on the round side the score is 2.
    3. If three throwing sticks landed on the flat side and the fourth one landed on the round side the score is 3.
    4. If all four throwing sticks landed on the flat side the score is 4.
    5. If all four throwing sticks landed on the rounded side the score is 5, which is the maximum obtainable score.
  5. Additional throws of the sticks by a player in a single turn are not allowed.
  6. Both players place one of their pieces into hole #1 (A and A’). The remaining pieces remain off the board.
  7. Both players throw the sticks. Whoever scores the lowest of the two moves first on the exact number of holes that they scored with the dice. Then, the opponent throws the sticks again and moves that number of holes that they scored.
  8. Further moves alternate between players.
  9. The pieces can move only forward, by the amount of holes that was scored with the dice. However, if the piece lands on a hole with a line then it will follow the line in either direction, as explained below.
  10. As soon as a piece either lands into holes marked with the Nefer symbol, #15 or #25 (G or G’ and E and E’), or passes them, the player gets to load the next piece onto the board into hole #1 (A or A’).
  11. If a piece lands exactly into holes marked with the Nefer symbol, #15 or #25 (G or G’ and E and E’), the player also gets a second turn.
  12. Once a player has more than one piece on the board, they can move any of their pieces, as long as the move is allowed.
  13. Pieces cannot pass each other unless they do it by landing into passing holes (#6, #20, #8, #10) marked with lines.
  14. One hole can only be occupied by one playing piece. If a hole is already occupied by another piece the player cannot land there or pass it. The only exception is the last hole #30 (H), called Shen, which can hold multiple pieces as will be explained below.
  15. If a piece lands in holes #6 (B or B’) then that piece skips to hole #20 (F or F’), as shown by the lines on the board. The same thing happens in reverse. If a piece lands in holes #20 (F or F’) then that piece skips back to hole #6 (B or B’), as shown by the lines on the board.
  16. If a piece lands in holes #8 (C or C’) then that piece skips to hole #10 (D or D’), as shown by the lines on the board. The same thing happens in reverse. If a piece lands in holes #10 (D or D’) then that piece skips back to hole #8 (C or C’), as shown by the lines on the board.
  17. Skipping holes by following the lines on skipping holes does not count as passing holes with Nefer (#15 or #25 (G or G’ and E and E’)), and if that happens the player does not get to load another piece on to the board.
  18. If a piece passes a hole with Nefer (#15 or #25 (G or G’ and E and E’)), but the starting hole (#1 (A or A’)) are already taken by another piece, then a new piece does not get loaded on to the board. However, if in such a case the piece landed into a hole with Nefer and the player got a second turn, then they still get to take the second turn.
  19. Whenever a player’s piece reaches the final hole #30 (H), also called Shen, the player removes the opponent’s piece that is located the farthest back on the path from the board and keeps it for themselves. The removed piece does not return to the board during the rest of the game for any reason. However, the player’s piece that reached the end hole also gets to be kept by the player and they can bring it back onto the board at any time when a new piece can be brought back onto the board.
  20. Entering hole #30 (H) requires an exact score of the dice. For example, if the piece is located on cell #29, the player must score 1, if the piece is located on cell #28, the player must score 2, if the piece is located on cell #27, the player must score 3, if the piece is located on cell #26, the player must score 4, and if the piece is located on cell #25, the player must score 5 . If the player scores a different dice score and cannot make any other moves using other pieces or move into cell #30, then they skip a turn and wait for the next turn.
  21. The player is never allowed to cross hole #30 (H) and enter inside the opponent’s path. Once a piece reaches the final hole #30 (H) it must stay there until the player scores the exact score of 1, after which that piece can be removed off the board.
  22. A piece sitting inside the final hole #30 (H) cannot be knocked off the board by the opponent. For this reason that hole is made with a much larger diameter than all other holes, since it can hold multiple pieces simultaneously, either the same player’s pieces, or the opponent’s pieces, or both. There is no limit to how many pieces the last hole can hold.
  23. The path can never be empty without any pieces. If a player knocks off the board the only opponent’s piece that was on the board, but the opponent still has more pieces in their hand then the opponent must load the next piece automatically into hole #1 (A or A’) and do not need to wait for dice score 1.
  24. The goal of the game is to capture all 5 pieces of the opponent, while keeping some of your own pieces. The player that captures all 5 of the opponent’s pieces first wins.

On Game Strategy:

  1. Hounds and Jackals is mostly a game of chance and not strategy. However, some strategizing is possible.
  2. The throwing sticks have uneven probability for different scores, as compared to a six sided cubical dice, which makes them more frustrating and exciting at the same time.
    1. The most frequent dice score on throwing sticks is 2 (probability is 6/16).
    2. The next most frequent dice scores are 1 and 3 (probability is 4/16).
    3. The least frequent dice scores are 4 and 5 (probability is 1/16).
    4. Due to this uneven probability of scoring it is advantageous to the player to keep gaps between their pieces and trap holes by either 1 or 3 holes. Gaps of 4 or 5 are even better. However, gaps of 2 are more dangerous since the probability of scoring a 2 is highest and therefore the piece can get easily fall into a trap and get moved back. The opposite applies if the trap hole will move the piece forward or it is a Nefer hole. Then the player should prefer a gap of 2 and not gap of 1 or 3 holes, and of course not a gap of 4 or 5 holes, which will give them even less of a chance on landing there.

Donna Washburne’s Rules:

  1. Number of players is 2.
  2. The game includes the board of 58 holes arranged in two half loops, and the 59th large common hole, 5 jackal pieces, 5 hound pieces, and 4, two sided, throwing sticks are included in the game to serve as dice, with one side rounded and the other side flat.
  3. The cells on the board are defined differently in this set of rules.
  4. All 4 throwing sticks are thrown at the same time. The score is determined as follows:
    1. If one throwing stick landed on the flat side and the other three landed on the round side the score is 1.
    2. If two throwing sticks landed on the flat side and the other two landed on the round side the score is 2.
    3. If three throwing sticks landed on the flat side and the fourth one landed on the round side the score is 3.
    4. If all four throwing sticks landed on the flat side the score is 4.
    5. If all four throwing sticks landed on the rounded side the score is 5, which is the maximum obtainable score.
  5. Every fifth hole is labeled with an orange circle and has a special meaning.
  6. Holes labeled with the Egyptian hieroglyph Ankh (meaning Life) have a special meaning as well.
  7. The holes connected by lines function in the same manner as in Skiryuk’s rule set. The pieces move from one hole to the connected one in both directions, either forwards or backwards.
  8. At the beginning of the game all 5 pieces are placed on the red holes for the first player and on the blue holes for the opponent.
  9. The goal of the game is to move all of the player’s pieces located on one side home box, onto the opponent’s side home box – from red holes to blue holes, and from blue holes to red holes.
  10. Pieces can only move forward.
  11. Pieces are not allowed to land into holes occupied bv the same player’s other piece.
  12. Piece that lands on a hole occupied by an opponent’s piece knocks the opponent’s piece off the board and occupies that hole.
  13. Holes labeled by Ankh and holes inside both of the home boxes are safe holes. If they are occupied by an opponent’s piece that piece cannot be knocked off the board.
  14. A knocked off the board piece can be brought back to the first hole inside its own home box by the exact dice score of 1.
  15. In order to move pieces on the board all 5 of them must be present on the board. While a piece is off the board the same player’s other pieces cannot be moved. If a piece has been knocked off, the player must bring that piece back onto the board with the exact throw of the dice.
    1. If the home box is completely empty, and the player scores 1, they put the knocked off piece onto the first hole inside the home box.
    2. If they score 2, then they put it in the second hole inside the home box.
    3. If they score 3, then they put it in the third hole inside the home box.
    4. If they score 4, then they put it in the fourth hole inside the home box.
    5. If they score 5, then they put it in the fifth hole inside the home box.
    6. If a hole is already taken by one of the pieces, either their own or the opponent’s (which cannot be knocked off since the home box holes are safe holes), then the player loses their turn, and must throw the dice again on the next turn to try to land inside a different hole inside the home box. The player gets only one dice throw try per turn.
    7. If all 5 spaces inside the home box are occupied by a mixture of player’s own and opponent’s pieces and the player gets a piece knocked off, since there are no holes for the player to bring back the knocked off piece they lose the game.
  16. The player who occupies the opponent’s home box with all of their 5 pieces, wins the game. Also, if opponent’s home box is occupied by a mixture of the opponent’s pieces and the player’s pieces, and the opponent get a piece knocked off the board, which they cannot return on the next move, because the home box is fully occupied, then the player wins the game as well.
  17. There is a variation in the game if the players are using two sets of 4 sided dice instead of throwing sticks. If the 2 two sided dice were thrown, then the player can chose to move two pieces on one turn, one on the amount of holes scored on one dice and the other on the amount of holes on the other dice. But the player cannot split moves however they want. They must use one dice for one piece and one dice for the other piece.

Bibliography:

  1. Bell, R. C. Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations. Courier Corporation, 2012.
  2. Crist, Walter, Anne-Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi, and Alex de Voogt. Ancient Egyptians at Play: Board Games Across Borders. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016.
  3. Hoerth, A. J. “The game of Hounds and Jackals.” Ancient Board Games in Perspective. British Museum Press, London (2007): 64-68.
  4. de Voogt, Alex, Anne-Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi, and Jelmer W. Eerkens. “Cultural transmission in the ancient Near East: twenty squares and fifty-eight holes.” Journal of Archaeological Science 40, no. 4 (2013): 1715-1730.
  5. Dunn-Vaturi, Anne-Elizabeth. “Game of Hounds and Jackals.” In Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom, edited by Adela Oppenheim, Dorothea Arnold, Dieter Arnold, and Kei Yamamoto. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015. p. 249, no. 188.
  6. García Martínez, María Antonia. “Astronomical Function of the 59-Hole Boards in the Lunar-Solar Synchronism.” Aula Orientalis 32 (2) (2014): 265-282.
  7. Botermans, Jack. The book of games: strategy, tactics & history. Sterling Publishing Company, 2008.
  8. Dunn-Vaturi, Anne-E. ““The Monkey Race” – Remarks on Board Games Accessories.” International Journal for the Study of Board Games, CNWS Publications, 2000. pp. 107-111.
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Filed Under: All Games, Egyptian Games Tagged With: Egyptian Games, Game of 58 Holes, Hounds and Jackals

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. EliDavid Laven says

    April 28, 2019 at 1:16 pm

    Extremely helpful. I have a nerdy, thirteen year-old son, fascinated by ancient board games, who will love this.

    Reply
    • EliEli says

      April 28, 2019 at 4:25 pm

      Thank you.

      Reply
  2. Elisusan ohnhaus says

    July 14, 2020 at 9:36 am

    Hi, I play a lot of cribbage and this looks like a cribbage board. It is interesting that it has two sets of thirty for each player, where in cribbage there is a total of 120 peg hole. not sure about Egypt, but the Mesopotamians had a counting system based on sixty which would be twice around this board. In the non-continuous cribbage boards, we move our pegs around twice to make the 120 total and then off onto the 121st hole. interesting also is that the peg holes in H&J are divided into sets of five as are cribbage boards. I know that games rules have only been reconstructed, but has anybody ever tried to work out a way to peg forward by moving like cribbage pegs work. For instance, you have one peg on the board. A is not number 1, it’s the holding hole for pegs before they enter play. You roll and move whatever, lets say you move to hole number 4 (which in this game board is marked as five because people aren’t thinking like cribbage players think). now your opponent moves whatever. Since you have one peg in play you are able to have another enter play, so you have a second peg waiting in the start hole (A in this schematic). You roll a one. So, in cribbage you would move the peg out of the start and move it one ahead of the peg in hole four. so that peg would jump along the snakes and ladders line (yes, it is like snakes and ladders isn’t it?) up into the waiting hole twenty. Since a peg obviously cannot occupy a hole already occupied, there is an element of strategy in how you choose to peg once you have more than two pegs on to the board. For instance, your next roll is a one, you can’t move your original piece from hole 4 (5 here) because it can’t follow the path to where you went on your previous move because that hole is occupied. You can only enter a new piece one hole, or move the one sitting on the end of the ladder forward one. I’m making a rule here that seems common sense in that you can’t move the existing peg in 4 (5) ahead of the peg in 20 because you can only get to twenty either the long way around or on the ladder with a roll that lands on 5 (6). with rules about things like, having to move no matter how strategically unfavorable, losing turns because of occupied spaces, etc, a really complicated and strategic game emerges. With a rule that says you have to move a player onto the board if you can, let’s say, until you have all five pegs in play, you would have a lot of strategizing to get all five pieces off the board. a rule like this could mean you might not be able to get that guy out of hole twenty for a while, maybe leading to a strategy to move so you don’t use the ladder at all. Maybe in later play you have that peg in twenty-one and you have a peg in nineteen and you roll a one. applying my cribbage knowledge I would say strategically you would move one ahead of 21 to 22 if there are no other pieces to move in a safe manner, and maybe strategically getting beyond hole twenty would almost always make good sense. It makes it far more interesting than simply hopping around to the end, and you don’t need to capture anybody, it remains a race game, but a very clever one. I know cribbage was supposedly invented in England in the 1700s but I this could be its great plus granddaddy, no matter what circuitous route got it to cribbage, and it also appears to be an early form of snakes and ladders. The interconnectedness of games played along the silk road would surely support this.

    Reply
    • EliEli says

      July 14, 2020 at 2:58 pm

      Thank you. I don’t think anyone tried playing it like cribbage. I have not see any articles about that. But the game does not come with cards like cribbage does.

      Reply
      • Elisusan ohnhaus says

        July 20, 2020 at 7:55 am

        H&J came into existence thousands of years before playing cards so as I look at the game cribbagely (new word), the play with only four throwing sticks would use the five pieces in such a way that a player would be forced to think more strategically than if he had a deck of cards available and only the two pegs of cribbage. One of the wonders of ancient games is that when we look at the design of the playing surfaces, they lend themselves to so much creative interpretation. Who can ever know how the games were played? either originally or over the thousands of years they existed? Many modern game players are blinded by the concept of single use board-ie, you can’t play anything but monopoly on a monopoly board, or backgammon on a backgammon board. But I’ll bet in the long distant past, there were myriads of games for each board, with cultural and social differences, all at one time, and over time and space.

        Reply

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