Edgar San Martin Jr.'s Mehen

A modern interpretation of an ancient Egyptian game.

Mehen was played in ancient Egypt thousands of years ago. Its coiled-serpent boards, marbles, and lion figurines have survived, but its original rules have been lost.

This interpretation combines archaeological inspiration with original mechanics involving hidden information, racing, capturing, and survival.

Guide two marbles to the serpent's head, or defeat your opponent's lions.

Play Mehen

1. Components and objective

Mehen is played on a coiled serpent divided into spaces. The journey begins at the outer tail and ends at the serpent's head.

Two board sizes are available:

Compact: 49 spaces.
Extended: 127 spaces, inspired by a surviving Egyptian Mehen board.

Position 0 is the tail, where a new marble enters. The head is the last space.

Two-player game

The sides are Carnelian and Lapis. Carnelian moves first, then the players alternate. Each player begins with:

6 marbles in reserve.
3 standing lions.
No marbles on the serpent.

Win by bringing two marbles to the head, or by making all three opposing lions fall.

Each player may have at most two marbles on the serpent at once. A finished marble stays at the head and still counts. A captured marble returns to the pile and can be entered again.

Six-player game

Two teams of three play: the Lions and the Lionesses. The Lions act first. Each participant begins with:

6 marbles in reserve.
1 lion or lioness.
No marble on the serpent.

Each participant may have only one marble on the serpent. A captured marble returns to that player's pile. A finished marble stays at the head and still counts toward the limit.

The first team to bring two different teammates' marbles to the head wins. A team also wins when all three opponents are frozen at once.

2. Hiding and guessing

The concealed number is the distance a marble may move. Players alternate turns. In the six-player game the teams alternate, and the team to move chooses one eligible teammate to act.

On your turn

Secretly conceal a number of marbles from 1 up to the number left in your reserve.
The opposing side names a whole number in that same range.
Reveal the concealed number.

Correct guess. You lose one standing lion, and the turn ends with no movement. In the six-player game, your own lion freezes instead.

Incorrect guess. You may move, or you may recover a fallen lion. In the six-player game you may revive one frozen teammate instead of moving.

The true concealed number is the distance. Conceal 4, and a wrong guess of 2 still lets you move exactly 4 spaces.

At the table, hide the marbles in a closed hand. Every reserve size is public. Only the concealed number is secret. The digital game hides the marbles for you.

The reserve

After the reveal, the concealed marbles go back into your hand. Deploying is different: a marble placed on the serpent leaves the reserve. A capture puts that marble back in the pile.

Two-player reserve
Marbles deployed	Reserve	Hidden numbers
0	6	1–6
1	5	1–5
2	4	1–4

In the six-player game, one marble on the serpent leaves a reserve of 5. When the first teammate finishes, each of the other two loses one more marble from the reserve. After that, a player who has not deployed hides from 1 to 5, and a player who has deployed hides from 1 to 4.

A smaller reserve is easier to read. Sending marbles into the race buys progress and makes your later numbers easier to guess.

3. Movement and capturing

After an incorrect guess, take one legal action:

Advance. Move one of your marbles toward the head by the concealed number.
Deploy. If you are still under your limit, place a marble on the tail and advance it by the concealed number.
Recover. Stand one fallen lion back up, or revive one frozen teammate. No marble moves.

Recovery spends the whole turn. If nobody can be recovered and a move is legal, you must move. Passing is not allowed while any action is legal. You move only your own marbles.

Movement rules

Marbles travel inward only, from the tail toward the head.
A marble moves exactly the concealed number of spaces.
It may pass friendly, allied, or opposing marbles. Passed marbles are not captured. Occupied spaces still count.
Friendly or allied marbles may share a space.
Landing exactly on an opposing marble captures it. That marble leaves the serpent and returns to its owner's pile, where it can be entered again.
If several opposing marbles share the landing space, the lowest seat is captured. If one player has more than one there, the earliest of that player's marbles is taken.

Reaching the head

A marble that reaches or passes the head finishes. The move does not have to land exactly. A finished marble is safe from capture and cannot be moved again.

4. Lions and recovery

Lions are the lives that keep a side in the game. An active lion faces the serpent. A fallen or frozen lion faces away.

Two-player game

Each player has three lions.

A correct guess against you knocks one standing lion down.
After an incorrect guess against you, you may stand one fallen lion back up instead of moving.
If all three of your lions are down, you lose at once.

Six-player game

Each participant has one lion or lioness.

A correct guess freezes the player who just acted.
A frozen player cannot take a turn or advance a marble. Their marble stays where it is and can still be captured.
After an incorrect guess, an unfrozen teammate may revive one frozen teammate instead of moving. The revived marble stays on its current space.
If all three teammates are frozen at the same time, that team loses at once.

5. Six-player team rules

The team game adds a shared turn order, a shared guess, and revival. The two teams race to finish two different travelers.

Turn order

A round is six team opportunities, alternating:

Lions, Lionesses, Lions, Lionesses, Lions, Lionesses.

On each opportunity the team chooses a teammate who has not yet acted this round.

Each player acts at most once per round. A correct guess still uses that turn, even though no marble moves.
A frozen player cannot be chosen.
A player revived before acting may still act later in the round.
If nobody on the team can act, that opportunity is skipped.
At the end of the round, everyone may act again.

Team guessing

When an opponent conceals marbles, the other team may discuss the number openly and then gives one guess. Guessing is not a turn. Joining the discussion does not spend anyone's chance to move.

In the digital game, one player on the guessing team enters the number. Entering it does not count as that player's turn.

Finishing and supporting teammates

When a team's first marble reaches the head:

That journey is complete, and the marble is safe.
Each of the other two teammates permanently loses one marble from the reserve. Marbles already on the serpent stay there.
The finisher may still be chosen later, but only to revive a frozen teammate. The finished marble does not move.
If a later guess freezes the finisher, the journey still counts, and the marble remains safe.

A finished player with no frozen teammate to revive cannot act. If the rest of the team cannot act either, the opportunity is skipped.

Team victory

A team wins at once when either of these happens:

Two different teammates have each finished a marble, or
all three opponents are frozen at the same time.

6. Illustrated examples

Carnelian is red and Lapis is blue in the examples. Dashed rings mark where a marble will land.

A. Hidden movement

Carnelian hides 3 marbles. Lapis guesses 5. The guess is wrong, so Carnelian advances from space 7 to space 10.

B. Deploying a marble

Carnelian conceals 4 and is not guessed. A new marble starts at the tail and advances to space 4. It leaves Carnelian's reserve.

C. Jumping and capturing

A marble moves 3, passing a friendly marble and an opposing marble. Only the space where it lands matters. Had it moved 2, it would have landed on the blue marble and captured it.

Before

After

Carnelian moves 3, from space 9 onto Lapis. Lapis returns to their pile and can be entered again.

Finishing

On the Compact board, space 49 is the head. A marble on 47 that moves 4 passes the head and still finishes. From then on it is safe.

D. Recovery

Carnelian has one fallen lion. After an incorrect guess, Carnelian restores it instead of moving. No marble advances.

E. Team revival

Lion 2 is frozen, and their marble stays where it is. A teammate gets an incorrect guess and revives Lion 2 instead of moving. If all three Lions were frozen at once, the Lionesses would win.

7. Historical background

Mehen is among the oldest known board games. It is attested in Egypt from the late Predynastic period through the Old Kingdom. The name belongs to a protective coiled serpent in Egyptian religion, associated with the sun god Ra and with protection and renewal.

What survives is equipment and pictures, not a rulebook:

The tomb of Hesy-Ra. A depiction of Mehen equipment with three lions, three lionesses, and six groups of six marbles.
Serpent boards. Stone boards with a spiral track, divided into spaces. The boards do not all use the same count.
The Chicago Mehen board. An Old Kingdom board of 127 sections. The Extended board takes its length from that count. It is not a copy of the object.
Other tomb scenes. Pictures of people gathered around Mehen boards.

The original method of play is unknown. James F. R. Masters has proposed that players hid marbles in a hand and an opponent guessed the number. The proposal is one way to account for the surviving marbles and for some gestures in the art. It is a hypothesis, not a recovered rule.

About this interpretation

Edgar San Martin Jr.'s Mehen is a modern game inspired by that evidence. The serpent, the marbles, the lion figurines, and the concealed-marble hypothesis shaped it.

The lives, freezing, recovery, capture, the shrinking reserve, the race to two journeys, and the team rules are modern.

This game does not claim to be the ancient rules of Mehen.

Behind the Game

What Were the Lions For? covers the research behind this game: the archaeology, the lions and the marbles, the design choices, and where the evidence stops. The sources are listed there.