Queen Playing Senet

The Queen Playing Senet is a depiction of Nefertari playing the game of Senet, a board game from ancient Egypt. Queen Nefertari was the Great Wife of Pharaoh Ramesses II, and some say she was his favorite wife. When Nefertari died, the king built her a tomb that is now called the Valley of the Queens. Inside the tomb, an entire wall was dedicated to show Nefertari playing, to demonstrate the importance of Senet, as well as the Queen’s intelligence. Scholars speculate that Nefertari may have been a writer in her lifetime. There is another painting inside the tomb of Nefertari coming before Thoth, the god of writing, to declare her title as a scribe of Osiris.

Nefertari lived a dignified life, and she was promised a dignified afterlife. In the ancient Egyptian funerary text, the Book of the Dead, there is a spell on how to transform into the Ba, which is the individual’s personality, depicted as a bird. The spell is inscripted on the Queen’s tomb, and is meant to be a guide for Nefertari on how to become a bird in the afterlife.

The tomb was discovered in 1904 by Ernesto Schiaparelli of the Egyptian Museum of Turin, who worked throughout the Valley of the Queens. Artifacts from the tomb of Nefertari are currently on loan for exhibition at the Egyptian Museum of Turin.

This text was written by our new contributor, Tommy :)