The game, called “Senet”, is thought to have been played by all levels of society some 3,500 to 5,000 years ago. In what has been described as the “board game of death”, was supposedly played by two players.
Egyptologists think each player would have had five pawns they could place on a grid of 30 squares arranged in rows of ten.
A dice was involved which a player would have to roll, with the aim of movie all five pawns to the lower right hand corner of the board.
Not all games of Senet are thought to have been spiritually inclined.
But, ancient Egyptian texts have been uncorked that connect the game’s movements to how the soul moves to the afterlife.
Walter Crist, an archaeologist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, has written about the game in research published in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.
Mr Crist and others think Senet evolved from a simple board game, like Ludo, to something that grew to involve spirituality, the afterlife and communicating with souls.
He believes a Senet board in the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum could have been used to connect with the dead.
His reasoning for this lies with a symbol on the board – a hieroglyphic symbol for water.
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Earlier this week, Express.co.uk reported on archaeologists who recovered an ancient board game playing piece in Northumberland.
The beautifully crafted piece of glasswork was unearthed on Holy Island, Lindisfarne, and a places a considerably different lens onto our understanding of Medieval Britain.
It has since been recognised as a rare archaeological find, made from swirling blue and white glass with a small “crown” of white glass droplets.
Archaeologists believe the object is a gaming piece from the Viking board game hnefatafl (“king’s table”), or a local version of the game.
It is unknown how the piece may have ended up arriving on the island.
Some theories suggest it could have been dropped on the island by a Norse raider.
Others say it was the possession of a high-status local, such as a monk or pilgrim, attempting to imitate the invaders cultural customs.
Whatever the answer, the playing piece offers a rare tangible link between Lindisfarne’s Anglo-Saxon monastery and the culture that eventually overwhelmed it.
The island is arguably best known for its spectacular illuminated gospels, which were created in the early eight century in the island’s first monastery.
The gospels is an illuminated manuscript book thought to have been produced around the years 715-720 in the monastery on the island, now held in the British Library in London.