In this game you are playing an archaeologist working in the Egyptian desert. You are effectively looking for ancient artefacts, including Pot Shards, Talismans and Coins. You need to collect sets of the same type of artefact that you can either trade at the market place or sell to the museum. The cards are colour coded with distinct artwork so it is very easy to tell between cards in your hand or on the table. They also show how many of each card is in the deck, and how much money you get for selling sets of between 1 and 5 cards.

You start the game with 5 cards face up in the market place, which you can trade cards in your hand for cards in the market place of an equal or lesser value (losing spare points). You get more money for larger sets of cards, effectively determining your collecting strategy. Depending on how many players there are and what cards they have traded from the market place you might want to collect lots of small sets or build up for a big set. Pot Shards are the most common with the smallest return, while Broken Cups are the least common with the highest return.

There are also Thief cards in the deck that allow you to steal a random card from another player, although if you keep an eye on what your opponents have traded from the market place you still have a good chance of stealing useful cards. There are also Sandstorm cards, which when drawn force the players to discard half of your cards rounded down into the market place. Both types of cards add some unpredictability, and mix up the contents of the market place.

There is one card that you keep separate from the deck called the Pyramid, which is another location that you can plunder. There are Map cards in the deck that you can either sell in sets of one card or save them up. You can discard 1, 2 or 3 Maps in order to draw 3, 5 or 7 treasure cards, as you explore chambers in the Pyramid. You can only explore each chamber once during each game, but it is an interesting additional feature of gaining cards.