This is CEWT’s third post and second blog post in our Games Series. Our last blog post focused on the history of games. This week’s blog will focus on the ‘why’ of playing games. But first, I want to give our readers a bit of context on our ‘why’. Why is a continuing education and workforce training program writing about games? This answer is simple…and maybe a bit complicated. 

The simple part is much easier to explain so let's start there. We are writing about games because of the people who work here, and because it does relate to our work but we’ll visit that later on in this article. For now, let’s focus on CEWT’s employees.

Games have been around for over a millennium. This issue of the CEWT blog will focus on the evolution of games.

The oldest playable board game in the world, The Royal Game of Ur, dates back 4,600 years. Its gameplay rules were found written on a cuneiform tablet (dating to 177 BC) and deciphered by curator Irving Finkel. While The Royal Game of Ur is the oldest playable board game known to man, it is not the oldest game in existence. The gameplay rules of many ancient games are lost to history. We know the games exist, we just don’t know how to play them. Senet, a game dating back to 3,100 B.C is one of the earliest known games1. A favorite of King Tut and Queen Nefertari, Senet rules do exist for modern play, but the rules are reconstructed and many variations exist2. It should be noted that royalty’s love of games was not limited to the Egyptians.