Analogous to the game of odd and even was one, in which two of the players held a number of shells, or dice, in their closed hands, over a third person who knelt between them, with his face towards the ground, and who was obliged to guess the combined number ere he could be released from this position.
Another game consisted in endeavoring to snatch from each other a small hoop, by means of hooked rods, probably of metal; and the success of a player seems to have depended on extricating his own from an adversary's rod, and then snatching up the hoop, before he had time to stop it.
There were also two games, of which the boards, with the men, are in the possession of Dr. Abbott. One is eleven inches long by three and a half, and has ten spaces or squares in three rows; the other twelve squares at the upper end (or four squares in three rows) and a long line of eight squares below, forming an approach to the upper part, like the arrangement of German tactics. The men in the drawer of the board are of two shapes, one set ten, the other nine in number.
Other games are represented in the paintings, but not in a manner to render them intelligible; and many, which were doubtless common in Egypt, are omitted both in the tombs, and in the writings of ancient authors.
The dice discovered at Thebes and other places, may not be of a Pharaonic period, but, from the simplicity of their form, we may suppose them similar to those of the earliest age, in which, too, the conventional number of six sides had probably always been adopted. They were marked with small circles, representing units, generally with a dot in the centre; and were of bone or ivory, varying slightly in size.
Plutarch shows that dice were a very early invention in Egypt, and acknowledged to be so by the Egyptians themselves, since they were introduced into one of their oldest mythological fables; Mercury being represented playing at dice with the Moon, previous to the birth of Osiris, and winning from her the five days of the epact, which were added to complete the 365 days of the year.
It is probable that several games of chance were known to the Egyptians, besides dice and _morra_, and, as with the Romans, that many a doubtful mind sought relief in the promise of success, by having recourse to fortuitous combinations of various kinds; and the custom of drawing, or casting lots, was common, at least as early as the period of the Hebrew Exodus.