hist-games: Seega

[P Shotwell]

Hello,
In connection with a current project, I've tried to discover if the rules
for Egyptian Seega are known from any ancient source or were they
interpolated from Grecian Poleis or more 'modern' play? There doesn't seem
to be anything on the Internet or in the books that are available to me at
my local university. (In fact the game isn't even mentioned, although Senet
is a few times)

Also, an  English traveler, Edward William Lane, wrote about Seega in 'An
Account of The Manners and Customs of The Modern Egyptians. Written In Egypt
During the Years 1833—1835' available at

http://scholarship.rice.edu/jsp/xml/1911/9176/71/LanMa1890.tei-timea.html

He says that there are no other rules beyond the basic laying out and
custodial capture rules. However, other (modern) writers have described
variants with rules to deal with ‘barriers’ that get set up so that neither
player can be compelled to attack  Also,they discuss whether captures should
be forced or a penalty assigned for not capturing; and what to do when a
player cannot move. This especially happens in the beginning, and the
question is whether the opponent must make an entry by taking an extra turn
or the blocked-in player should be allowed to remove one of the opponent's
pieces to clear a path. For example, see

http://nabataea.net/seega.html
http://nrich.maths.org/public/viewer.php?obj_id=1267

Any help would be appreciated.
Many thanks!

Peter Shotwell
www.usgo.org/bobhighlibrary
pshotwell at gmail.com
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