“The urge to discover secrets”, John Chadwick once wrote, “is deeply ingrained in human nature”; however, only a lucky few manage to turn solving mysteries into a real-life job. The rest must be content with “solving artificial puzzles devised for our entertainment.”

The Seshta project, named after an Egyptian word for “secret”, originates from the idea that people with an interest in ancient civilizations can partake in this kind of experience without having to undergo the same preparation expected from professional archaeologists (and devoted amateurs). Over the past 30 years, many excellent games involving archaeology have been developed, some featuring very entertaining puzzles. Nevertheless, at a closer scrutiny, the puzzles rarely have anything to do with the civilization involved: the latter may provide a captivating background for challenges that are, ultimately, a product of modern sensitivities deliberately designed to be palatable for a modern audience. The quantity of enthusiastic amateurs, however, suggests that a different approach may be possible.

Our puzzles will all be based on actual features of the cultures involved: symbolism, artistic conventions, ideology, and so on. Concise but comprehensive information will be available, ideally in an interactive form, to help the players in their quest for a solution. Those who wish for a greater challenge, on the other hand, could simply ignore these hints and try to work their way out by themselves – just like real-life archaeologists facing an unknown culture. Realizing, from time to time, that they already had the necessary knowledge due to their previous reading on the subject could be a pleasant surprise.