QuoteReplyTopic: CHESS, Iranian or Indian Invention? Posted: 04-Apr-2006 at 06:20
Murray and van der Linde the two chess
historians were almost certain that the birthplace of chess was Indian
sub-continent, but most certainly it was invented in Iran for the
following reasons: (To be brief I can outline the factors) .
1): Indian literature has no early mentions of chess but Persian literature does:
The first unmistakable reference in Sanskrit writings is in the
"Harschascharita" by the court poet Bana, written between 625 and 640.
On the other hand, pre-Islamic documents have solidly connected chess
with the last period of the Sasanian rulers in Iran (VI-VII century).
The "Kamamak", an epical treatise about the founder of this dynasty,
mentions the game of chatrang as one of the accomplishments of the
legendary hero. It has a proving force that a game under this name was
popular in the period of redaction of the text, supposedly the end of
the 6th century or the beginning of the 7th. Closely related is a
shorter poem from about the same period entitled in Pahlavi
"Chatrang-Nmag", dealing with the introduction of chess in Iran.
Master Ferdowsi wrote also about
it in the 11th century, but his sources are solid and form a continuous
chain of witnesses going back to the middle of the 6th Century in Iran.
Mater describes chess as arriving from Hind. According to historical
sources this name "Hind" was not used for India until after the 11th
century. Here Hind means Eastern-Province of Iranian Empire including
Baluchistan, and while others thers have extended Hind to Khuzistan .
As some Russian chess historians claim, nobody could possibly generate
the rules of chess only by studying the array position at the beginning
of a game. On the other hand, such an achievement might be made by
looking at Takht-I Nard (backgammon).
2): India has no early chess pieces but Iran does:
The presence of carved chess men in Iranian domains contrasts with the
absence of such items in India. There are no chess men there from early
times, and only in the 10th century appears an indirect mention from
al-Masudi: "The use of ivory (in India) is mainly directed to the
carving of chess- and nard pieces". Some experts believe that old
Indian chess pieces may be discovered one day! So far, this is mere
speculation. The three oldest sets of chess pieces closely identified
as such belong to Iranian domains, not to India. The most important are
the Afrasiab pieces. They were found 1977 in Afrasiab, near Samarqand,
and have been dated by its Soviet discoverers as early as the 7th-8th
century. Western experts accept at least the year 761 because a coin so
dated belongs to the same layer. These seven ivory men, questionable as
all "idols" may be, are Iranian, even if the territory was under
Islamic rule since 712. Next group of chess pieces (three chessmen)
comes also from the Greater-Iran. The so-called Ferghana pieces include
a "Rukh" in form of a giant bird, and its antiquity should be not too
distant from the Afrasiab lot. In Nishapur another ivory set was
discovered though belonging to later times, 9th or 10th century. These
are not idols anymore and are carved following the abstract pattern
which has been characterized as "Arabic".
3): The Arabs introduced chess in India after taking "Shatrang" from Iran:
Games upon the "ashtapada" board of 8x8, with dice and with two or more
players may have served as "proto-chess", but the two types of games
already differ too strongly in their nature and philosophy to make the
evolution of "Chaturanga" into "Shatransh" a simple question of direct
parentage via the Persian "Chatrang". Arab writers stated quite
frequently that they took the game of "shatransh" from the Iranians,
who called it "chatrang". This happens in the middle of a
political-cultural revolution, which has been analysed in historical
texts. The ruling Umayyad dynasty was thrown out after a fierce civil
war by a certain Abul Abbas, who initiated a new era, founding in
Baghdad in the former Iranian territory, around the year 750 and
translating there from Damascus the Islamic political centre. The
Abbasid dynasty was culturally of Iranian origin. So
Iranian influences became clearly dominant in the cultural renaissance
which took place inside the Arabic trunk. A lot of the previous
knowledge from classical Greece, Byzantium, early Egyptian and Middle
East civilizations and even "from the country of Hind" was compiled and
re-translated into Arabic and absorbed in a scientific body which
followed its further path towards the West. Chess was only a part of
this knowledge, packaged together with earlier mathematical,
astronomical, philosophical or medical achievements.
However, we know that while chess
flourished in Baghdad in the 9th century, the earliest reliable account
of chess-playing in India date only from the 11th century.
4): Etymology is unclear:
Although, Murray shows that Pahlavi words in the game are adapted from
Sanskrit, and the Arabic in turn from Pahlavi but Sanskrit
closely-linked contemporary relatives such as Avestan. However, the
roots of several chess terms may be so go further to India, but the
fact is that the Sanskrit word "Chaturanga" means only "army", and it
is unclear whether it referred to chess, to a possible form of
"protochess" with four players, or to some strategically exercise with
pieces over a board with military purposes.
In any case, to be on safer
ground, we must remember the earliest solid evidences about the board
game called chess belong to Iran. The Pahlavi word "Chatrang" means,
even to- day, the mandrake plant, which has a root in form of a human
figure. So, there is a good case in favour of a different etymological
interpretation: Any game played with pieces representing figures may be
compared with the "shatrang" plant.
Another hint is the nomenclature
of the pieces, persistently related to different sorts of animals
rather than to components of an army: In the "Grande Acedrex" of King
Alfonso of Castile (1283) lions, crocodiles, giraffes etc. play over a
board of 12x12 cases with peculiar jumping moves, and the invention of
it is connected to the same remote period in India as normal chess.
They are very atypical in any context referring to India. (See the
reference "Hasb"(War) in "The Encyclopaedia of Islam", De Gruyter,
Leyden-New York 1967). On the other hand, elephants are not at all
exclusive from Indian origin (Sir William Gowers, "African Elephants
and Ancient Authors", African Affairs, 47 (1948) p.173 ff. Also Frank
W. Walbank, "Die Hellenistische Welt", DTV 1983 p. 205-6), not even in
military campaigns: The Iranian were the first nation that introduced
cavalry and they had also foot-soldiers, chariots and elephants as well
as river and battle-ships. In Egypt, the Ptolemaic Kings obtained
elephants regularly from Somalia. Strabo (16,4,5) mentions the
foundation of several cities in Africa with the main purpose of hunting
elephants. The hunters have even written dedications to Ptolemaios IV
Philopator (221-204 BC). Polybios describes a battle with elephants
between Ptolomaios IV and Antiochos III in 217 BC. Pyrrhus and Hannibal
used it in the West. Modern research has confirmed all the details.
I read it in Asar ol-Belad v Akhbar ol-Ebad by Ghazvini " Bozrgmehr (Bozajomehr) was minister of Khosorow I Anoshiravan, he was scientist & Clever man, one of his rival, made a Shatrang ( Chess ) & Sent it to Anoshiravan court as challenge & asked Bozorgmeher to find method of the game. Bozorgmehr find it & sent back method with Varagh=Ganjafeie game. (I don't know name in English SB writes it,plz) "
The earliest mention of Shatranj or alternatively Chaturanga, or any version of chess, appears in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, written circa 500 BC. The oldest known chess pieces have been found in excavations of Moen jo Daro in Sindh dated to 3000 BC. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#Origins_of_chess)
The earliest references to the game are found in the Mahabharata written circa 500 BC, while the modern version of Chaturanga has been played since 600 CE or earlier, hence Chaturanga is most commonly believed to be the oldest version of chess. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaturanga)
There's even a theory that suggest a Chinese origin (Xiangqi) and notice of a strange chess-like game in Ancient Egypt. Even the Irish hold some unclear claim to it!
Whatever the case it is very likely that Persians played a major role in its duffusion under Islamic rule. It's also significative how much the gameboard resembles the Manicheistic vision of a battle between light and darkness so deeply entrenched in Zoroastrian cosmogony.
The origins of chess is one of the most controversial areas
of board gaming history. Countries which, at one time or the other,
have been associated with invention of chess include Sindh/India, China, Persia, Egypt, Assyria, Arabia, Greece, Ireland and Uzbekistan.
Many countries claim to have invented the chess game in some
incipient form. The most commonly held view is that chess originated in
Sindh. As a matter of fact, the Arabic, Persian, Greek and Spanish words for chess, are all derived from the SanskritChaturanga. The present version of chess played throughout the world is ultimately based on a version of Chaturanga that was played in India around the 6th century CE.
It is also believed that the Persians created a more modern version of
the game after the Indians. One ancient Persian text refers to Shah Ardashir, who ruled from 224241 CE, as a master of the game.
Another theory exists that chess arose from the similar game of Xiangqi (Chinese chess), or at least a predecessor, thereof, existing in China since the 2nd century BC. Scholars who have favored this theory include Joseph Needham and David H. Li.
< ="text/">
//
A Persian youth playing chess with two suitors. Chess was played in Persia as early as the 3rd century AD.
Origins of chess pieces
Chess-like pieces
Ever since the earliest times, and especially with regards to the most ancient of preliterate societies, chess-like pieces isolated from whatever boards they could have been played on were only simple figurines
cut from stone, or made from clay and fired, and for their small size
could have been used to help in accounting in trade and commerce. As
some researchers have come to believe, some tokens represented goods or
merchandise in transit; including them in a caravan made the trading
trip that much more legitimate, and may have invested in them a degree
of talismanic
luck. Trading partners relied upon the tokens as representatives of the
real thing: a cube could represent a crate, a tiny horse figure could
represent a horse, and a pod on a stalk could represent a bushel of
grain. Insofar as ancient commerce goes, this sort of thing has immense
practicality when it comes to balancing one's ledgers, and indicating
whether partial shipments are meant to be completed with future
shipments. No less important is the matter of exacting tribute from a
subject people, and keeping track of how much tribute has been arrived
at. This becomes all the more important in an economic network having
no common currency, and where debts are satisfied with payments in
kind. (In the Near East, for instance, clay tokens have been found in
archaeological digs, and some believe that is how man's earliest
writing systems first began: from pressing these tokens and figures
into clay or waxen tablets, and eventually shipping the tablets instead
of the tokens, as an accurate statement of accounts is the easiest way
to avoid ill feelings between distant trading centers. It is widely
assumed that the cuneiform
system of writing on wax or clay tablets followed very shortly after
the practice of passing along the tokens.) But anyone who has had to
deal with the drudgery of accounting knows that the tabulation and
manipulation of tables of tokens is anything but fun, and ought to
admit that that is a far cry from a game.
Chess pieces as talismans
An argument can also be advanced that chess pieces hewn from stone were miniature versions of totems,
useful for representing and predicting the conflict of divine forces in
nature or society according to scientific methods available to anyone
curious enough to inquire. As did many other ancient people, the Romans kept little wood statues lares et penates
by them in their houses and at work for good luck and good health,
and considered spiritual power to be present in them, and emanate from
them, wherever they were put. They were not merely placed on pedestals
to repose there for general purpose veneration, they were brought and
placed where they were believed to have the greatest effect: at the
dinner table, the library, the bedroom, the business office, or the
garden. Not all talismans
were figurine in shape; many were cut or carved or minted in the shape
of coins some with magic words inscribed on them and attached to
chains for use as pendants; of course, attaching them to chains must
render them less accessible to play on a chessboard. Regardless, the
chess pieces of the game Shogi
may have found their origin in a line of development similar to that.
Even still, it is one thing to throw such pieces on a square grid, in a
manner reminiscent to divination, as in the I Ching,
counting perfect throws against those where pieces straddle dividing
lines, and it is quite another thing altogether to have them start from
fixed positions and wage war against each other.
Chess pieces as objects of art
In any case, it was not until mankind had advanced thus far in art
and technology that little stone figures could be placed on a
rectangular grid, and used for some kind of game pieces, whether as
animals or men, or wagons or ships, or towers and castles, that chess
came close to being invented. In fact, as artisans became more
proficient in the manufacture of porcelain, glass, and brick, and were
able to make castings in metal, noble families too poor to obtain and
maintain private zoos for themselves could still amass beautiful collections of figurines of animals, highly suitable for games when not otherwise reserved for private viewing. (A man on a horse the knight of chess was, for example, one of the most common figures in puppet
shows in the Middle Ages, and making a puppet was far more complex and
elaborate than is the case today, with many of them having porcelain
heads connected to segmented bodies and limbs capable of independent
movement, including ability to mount and dismount from the steeds that they rode.) The existence of sets of miniature figures could well have made the invention of chesslike games inevitable, and a mere matter of time.
Further development of chess
Chess eventually spread westward to Europe and eastward as far as
Japan, spawning variants as it went. From India it migrated to Persia, where its terminology was translated into Persian, and its name changed to chatrang. The names of its pieces were translated into Persian along the way. Although the existing evidence is weak, it is commonly speculated that chess entered Persia during the reign of Khusraw I Nshrwn (531-578 CE).
From Persia it entered the Islamic world, where the names of its
pieces largely remained in their Persian forms in early Islamic times.
Its name became shatranj, which continued in Spanish as ajedrez and in Greek as zatrikion, but in most of Europe was replaced by versions of the Persian word shāh = "king".
There is a theory that this name replacement happened because,
before the game of chess came to Europe, merchants coming to Europe
brought ornamental chess kings as curiosities and with them their name shāh, which Europeans mispronounced in various ways.
Checkmate: This is the English rendition of shāh māt, which is Persian for "the king is finished".
Rook: From the Persian rukh, which means "chariot", but also means "cheek" (part of the face).
The piece resembles a siege tower. It is also believed that it was
named after the mythical Persian bird of great power called the roc. In India, the piece is more popularly called haathi, which means "elephant".
Bishop. From the Persianpīl
means "the elephant", but in Europe and the western part of the Islamic
world people knew little or nothing about elephants, and the name of
the chessman entered Western Europe as Latin alfinus and
similar, a word with no other meaning (in Spanish, for example, it
evolved to the name "alfil"). This word "alfil" is actually the Arabic
for "elephant" hence the Spanish word would most certainly have been
taken from the Islamic provinces of Spain. The English name "bishop" is
a rename inspired by the conventional shape of the piece. In Russia,
the piece is, however, known as слон = "elephant". In the Indian lingo however, the piece is more popularly known as oont = "camel".
Queen. Persian farzīn = "vizier" became Arabic firzān, which entered western European languages as forms such as alfferza, fers, etc but was later replaced by "queen". Incidentally, the Indian equivalent of "queen", rani is used for the piece by Indians.
Among other early literary evidence for chess is a middle-Persian epic Karnamak-i-Artakhshatr-i-Papakan which mentions its hero as being skilled at chess. This work is dated with some reserve, however, at 600CE: The work could have been composed as early as 260 CE and as late as 1000 CE. The earliest evidence which we can date with some certainty is in early Arabic chess literature dating from the early 9th century CE.
Chess with dice from romane epoch was found in France with Charlemagne figure sculpted on king pieces, and backgammon game.
Other theories
A seven-piece chess set made of ivory, dated to 762 AD and found at Samarkand
Many of the early works on chess gave a legendary history of the invention of chess, often associating it with Nard (a game of the tables variety like backgammon). However, only limited credence can be given to these. Even as early as the tenth century Zakaria Yahya commented on the chess myths, "It is said to have been played by Aristotle, by Yafet Ibn Nuh (Japhet son of Noah), by Sam ben Nuh (Shem), by Solomon for the loss of his son, and even by Adam when he grieved for Abel." In one case the invention of chess was attributed to Moses (by the rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra in 1130). However, this claim is opposed by some Muslims who consider chess forbidden in Islam.
Literary sources indicate Xingq may have been played as early as the 2nd century BC (see chess in early literature). Other battle-like board games played in antiquity without dice include the ancient Chinese game of Go, still popular even today. Although the origins of Go may extend as far back as 2300 BC [1], substantial supporting evidence dates no earlier than the 3rd century BC. The oldest surviving remnant of ancient Chinese Liubo (or Liu po) dates to circa 1500 BC. Nevertheless, Liubo, though sometimes considered a battle game, was played with dice. According to a hypothesis by David H. Li, general Han Xin drew on Liubo to develop the earliest form of chess in the winter of 204 BC-203 BC.
Iran
The Karnamak-i Ardeshir-i Papakan, an epical treatise about the founder of Sassanid dynasty, mentions the game of chatrang
as one of the accomplishments of the legendary hero. It has a proving
force that a game under this name was popular in the period of
redaction of the text, supposedly the end of the 6th century or the
beginning of the 7th. Closely related is a shorter poem from about the
same period entitled in Pahlavi Chatrang-Nmag, dated around AD 600, dealing with the introduction of chess in Iran.
The oldest clearly recognizable chessmen have been excavated in ancient Afrasiab, today's Samarkand,
in Iranian domains contrasts with the absence of such items in India.
Afrasiab was under the Islamic rule since 712, but were essential an
Iranian cultural domain of Persian origin.
As Bidev, the Russian chess historian pointed out, nobody could
possibly generate the rules of chess only by studying the array
position at the beginning of a game. On the other hand, such an
achievement might be made by looking at backgammon (in Persian Takht-I Nard), which is another Iranian game-invention.
Egypt
There is evidence of two ancient Egyptian battle-like board games played without dice. Particularly, Plato attributes Egypt as the origin of petteia, played in the 5th to 4th centuries BC, but nothing more is known about the game (see reference page 261 at Greek Board Games). Another such ancient Egyptian game was seega (idem, pp. 270-271).
When chess reached Germany, accidental coincidence of the imported word schach = "chess" and "check" with the old native German word schach = "robbery" led some people when writing in Latin to use the names latrunculi and ludus latrunculorum to mean "chess".
Ireland
The main claim for Irish origin is the claim that two chess tables were bequeathed in the will of Cathair Mor who died in 153 CE. The Celticgame of fidchell is believed to be a battle game, like chess (as opposed to a hunt game, like tafl or brandub), and possibly a descendant of the Roman game ludus latrunculorum. However, these games were completely unlike chess.
Chess, as the world knows it today, has an ancestry clearly
definable and easily established. The student of the game's history,
indeed, can find a wealth of corroborative evidence to further his
efforts in tracing its ancestry, in philology.
"A Number of the mediaeval European chess
terms," writes H.J.R. Murray in his voluminous work, A History of
Chess, "can be traced back by way of Arabic to Middle Persian." For his
authority Mr. Murray has utilized an elaborate compilation of data from
chess literature both in printed and manuscript forms dating as far
back as the Egyptian Dynasties.
He continues: "The name of the game in most of
the European languages (e.g. English, 'chess'; French, 'echecs';
Italian, 'scacchi') can be traced back, through the Latin plural
'scaci' ('scachi', scacci', meaning 'chessmen'), to the Arabic and
Persian name of the chess King, 'shah'."
We may find confirmation of this evidence in the
fact that the name, "chess", in modern Spanish or Castilian is
"ajedrez", and in Portuguese it is "xadrez". Further, we find these two
forms in more ancient Castilian as "acedrix", which is nothing more
than the Arabic "ash-shatranj", or the "shatranj" in European costume.
To proceed one step further back we find "shatranj" to be an
"Arabicized form of the Middle Persian 'shatrang'," which in turn is an
adaptation of the Sanskrit "chaturanga". "All these terms are in their
respective languages the ordinary names for the game of chess."
To substantiate this process of derivations Mr.
Murray makes a most interesting assertion: "This philological evidence
derives some support from the documentary evidence. The earliest works
which make mention of chess date from about the beginning of the 7th
century A. D., and are associated with the northwest India, Persia, and
Islam. It is difficult to assign exact dates, but the oldest of a
number of nearly contemporary references is generally assumed to be a
mention of chess in a Middle Persian romance --the 'Karnamak'-- which
is ascribed with some hesitation to the reign of Khusraw II Parwiz, the
Sasanian king of Persia, 590-628 A. D. The others belong to northwest
India."
Our game today, as the western world plays it,
is one of the two main branches in which it may historically be
divided. Our game is known as European chess, or Occidental chess. The
second branch is known as Asiatic chess and includes those forms
familiar to China and Japan. "Shon-gi" is the Japanese form of chess;
"I-go, Wei-Ki" is the ancient Chinese game of chess. In 1904 a Japanese
philosopher, Cho-Yo, wrote regarding these games:
"The Chinese have been for many centuries
acquainted with chess under a form not very unlike the Occidental
branch of the Chessological game. Yet the rules for playing are very
different from those of the Hindostanese and its descendants' modified
offsprings, so that it gives us a strong suggestion to let it be a
quite, though only apparently, independent origin on account of the
peculiar feature of a central space or strip called 'The Sacred Barrier
or River'.
"The origin of the Chinese Chessological game is
also of very great antiquity, and the reputation of the inventor of the
game for the sake of getting clear riddance of brutal, bloodthirsty
struggle.is generally yet fabulously attributed to the great sage Wei
Wang, in 1120 B.C.
"Japanese chess, or 'Shon-gi', is of a very
great antiquity, and is a descendant of that which originated at least
5000 years ago."
Referring again to Mr. Murray's writings, we read:
"It is interesting to note that early Persian and Arabic tradition
is unanimous in ascribing the game of chess to India. The details
naturally vary in different works and the names in the tradition are
manifestly apocryphal.
"Chess is usually associated with the decimal
numerals as an Indian invention, and its introduction into Persia is
persistently connected with the introduction of the book 'Kalila wa
Dimna' (the Fables of Pilpay), in the reign of the Sasanian monarch,
Khusraw I Nushirwan, 531 A.D., and European scholars of Sanskrit and
Persian generally accept the traditional date of the introduction of
this book as established. The so-called Arabic numerals are well-known
to be really Indian.
"Finally, a comparison of the arrangement and
method of the European game of the 11th and 13th centuries A.D. with
the Indian game as existing today and as described in the earlier
records supports the same conclusion.
"We must accordingly conclude that our European
chess is a direct descendant of an Indian game played in the 7th
century with substantially the same arrangement and method as in Europe
five centuries later, the game having been adopted first by the
Persians, then handed on by the Persians to the Muslim world, and
finally borrowed from Islam by Christian Europe."
To substantiate the assertions as to the origin
of the Asiatic branch of chess, as quoted above from Cho-Yo, Mr. Murray
has this to say:
"Games of a similar nature exist today in other
parts of Asia than India, The Burmese 'sittuyin', the Siamese 'makruk',
the Annamese 'chhoen trang', the Malay 'chator', the Tibetan
'chandaraki', the Mongol 'shatara', the Chinese 'siang k'i', the Corean
'tjyang keui', and the Japanese 'sho-gi', are all war games exhibiting
the same great diversity of pieces which is the most distinctive
feature of chess.
"There is naturally far less direct evidence
respecting the ancestry of these games than in the case of European
chess, but there can be no doubt that all these games are descended
from the sam original Indian game. The names 'sittuyin'' (Burmese),
'chhoen trang' (Annamese), and 'chandaraki' (Tibetan) certainly, and
the names 'chator' (Malay) and 'shatara' (Mongol) probably, reproduce
the Sanskrit 'chaturanga'."
In respect to the arrangement of pieces and
board in the Malay, Tibetan and Mongol games Mr. Murray points out that
they are identified very closely with the Indian game, but he further
comments that the relation of the Chinese, Corean, and Japanese games
are "not so obvious." He leaves no doubt, however, that both the Corean
and Japanese games are derivatives of the older form of the Chinese
game. Mention is made of Chinese writings which refer to the
introduction of modifications in their game about 1279 B.C. Such
coincidental features as the Chariot with the move of the Rook
occupying the corner squares, and the Horse with the characteristic
move of the Knight occupying adjoining squares indicate, and not
accidentally, that the Chinese games are of Indian origin.
In summarizing, we find this salient and
self-evident fact. To again use Mr. Murray's words: "The broad lines of
the diffusion of chess from India are fairly clear. Its earliest
advance was probably westwards to Persia; the eastward advance appears
to have been rather later, and at least three lines of advance may be
traced." The first group, we are able to clearly trace, carried the
game by Kashmir to the far east via China, Korea, and Japan. The second
line, and most probably the same by which Buddhism traveled, carried
the game to Further India (where it took on dissimilar features to that
of Indian chess). Somewhat later the game spread from the southeast
coast of India to the Malay Peninsula. How the game may have reached
Tibet and the northern tribes of Asia is yet in doubt. Very ancient
Persian manuscripts have revealed that the Zoroastrians had meanwhile
passed on chess to the Eastern Roman Empire, and, further documents
also disclose that, resulting from the Mohammedan conquest of Persia,
Islam acquainted herself with the game. Following this period the
Muslims became the most prolific pioneers of chess, thus bringing into
being the first concepts of the Occidental branch, and carrying their
game as far west as Spain and as far east as India where they ascribed
the Arabic nomenclature on the Northern and Central provinces of the
peninsula. There is in existence pronounced evidence of the fact that
Christian Europe took up the study of chess from the Moors as early as
1000 A.D. Upon gaining a foothold on the Mediterranean shores, it
gradually spread northward over France and Germany to Great Britain, to
Scandinavia, and to Iceland.
Archeological discoveries have brought to light
chess pieces and boards found in tombs as old as the pre-dynastic
period which dates back to about 4000 B.C. At King's College, London,
in July, 1909, there was on display at the annual exhibition of the
Egypt Exploration Fund a clay gaming board, measuring 7 inches by 2 1/2
inches, with three rows of six squares and eleven conical pieces
varying in height from one-half inch to one inch, taken from a
pre-dynastic tomb at El-Mahasna, which lies eight miles north of
Abydos. The tomb is presumed to have been the burial-place of a
medicine man or magician.
There have also been found in tombs of the Fifth
Dynasty, about 3600-3400 B.C., paintings on which were depicted early
inhabitants of Egypt playing at chess. Chess games are mentioned in the
earliest Buddhist literature of India, which manuscripts date back to
about 500 B.C.
A wealth of archeological discoveries, and a
vast collection of Sanskrit, Indian, and especially Persian literature
conclusively prove that the origin of chess dates back to the beginning
of civilization itself.
The Persian Chatrang ( and the Indian Chaturanga)
had already two armies of 16 pieces each, with a familiar set-up,
on an uncheckered 64 cases board :
Each side has : 1 Shah, whose capture
is the aim of the game and which moves 1 step in all direction as
our King. 1 Vizier (Farzin, Firzan in Arab), close
to the Shah and which moves 1 step diagonally. 2 Elephants
(Pil, Fil in Arab) which moves diagonally 2 steps, leaping over
the intermediate case if occupied. 2 Horses (Asp,
Faras in Arab) moving obliquely exactly as our modern Knights.
2 Chariots (Rukh in Persian and Arab) which have exactly
the orthogonal move of our Rooks. 8 Soldiers (Piyadah,
Baidaq in Arab) which move 1 step straight ahead (never 2) and capture
diagonally ahead as our modern Pawn. When reaching the last row,
they are promoted to Farzin.
In China, the earliest description of Xiangqi, with
all its pieces, are more recent. They are from Bei Song Dynasty,
around 1000 A.D. and depicted the modern Xiangqi already. They are
two armies, one blue and one red, with 16 pieces placed on the intersections
of a 8 x 9 cases board, then 9 x 10 points :
1 General (Jiang for blue, Shuai for red) whose capture
was here again the aim of the game and which moves 1 step, orthogonally
only. It is confined to the 9 points of its citadel.
2 Advisors or Mandarins (Shi), also confined in the palace and which
moves 1 step diagonally. 2 Ministers for blue, or
2 Elephants for red (both named Xiang but with different ideograms)
which move 2 steps diagonally. They can not jump and are not allowed
to enter the opposite half-board. 2 Horses (Ma) whose
move is similar to that of our Knights with, maybe already, the
impossibility of jumping over the first leg case if it is occupied.
2 Chariots (Ju) strictly equivalent again to our Rooks
at the corners of the board. . 2 Cannons (Pao) placed before
most of the troops on the third row 5 Soldiers (Zu
for blue, Bing for red) which step 1 case straight ahead as long
as they are in their own half of the board, then which can also
move 1 case sideways when they have penetrated the opposite camp.
This is their only form of promotion. As all the other pieces, their
move and capture are identical.
7 pieces set, ivory , dated
6 to 8th c., found at Afrasiab, near Samarkand,
Uzbekistan State Museum of Samarkand Earliest known
Chess pieces.
Isolated Knight found in Afrasiab, bone,
6 to 7th c.
Ivory piece most probably dated from
11th c but Linder thinks that 7 to 8th c is more accurate.
Found in Saqqizabad, Iran and very similar to the Vizier
of the Afrasiab set. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York.
Chariot-rook(?) from Samarkand, 7-8th
c, ivory. (British Museum)
Fil (Elephant/Bishop), origine unknown
(Iran, Irak, India?), 7th-8th c.?, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art
Rock
crystal, 800 AD. Found at Basra, South Iraq.
Rukh, origin unknown, 8th-10th c., ivory
The Metropolitan Museum Of Art
Shah, Iran, 8th-10th c., carved jet
The Metropolitan Museum Of Art
Iranian Rook from Nishapur, 9th c.
Chess
piece (?) in glass, Lebanon, 10th c.
Shah / Shah / Rukh / Fil
Nishapur
pieces, Tepe Madrasa, Iran, 9th-12th century ivory
with traces of green, The Metropolitan Museum Of Art.
Anoth Nishapur set, Iran, 1th
century, composite body, glazed unique almost complete
set from the Seljuk period The Metropolitan Museum
of Art
Rook, Egypt, Islamic period
Chess piece (King ?), Egypt, Islamic
period
Rukh or Knight, origin unknown, 11th-12th
c., carved ivory The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Shah, Egypt
or Syria, Mamluk period, 13th-14th c., glass The
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Two Rooks, Byzantine art. The Elephant was found
in Iraq and is from 10th c. Museo Bargello, Florence, Italy
Pawn, Shah, Vizir, Knights and Rook, Arabic chess
set, Rock-crystal and smoken topaz, 13th.c, Topkapi Palace Museum,
Istanbul, Turkiye
Elephant
in ivory found in ancint Khazar fortress of Sarkel,
dated 8 to 10th c., Ermitage, St Petersburg, Russia.
Proves that Chess came in Russia by the Caspian-Volga
route.
King, ivory, 12th c, Slutsk, Belarus,
Bielorussian Academy of Sciences, Minsk
Queen, ivory, 12th c, Lukoml, Belarus,
State Museum of Belarus
Boat (Rook), ivory, beg 12th c,
Volkovysk, Belarus, Bielorussian Art Museum, Minsk
Pawn, ivory, beg 12th c, Volkovysk,
Belarus, Bielorussian Art Museum, Minsk
he means that the players back then had more respect for the game and the pieces (which supposedly symbolised certain things, for example the shah piece (king)) unlike today, where we only play it for fun and the pieces dont really mean anything to us.
"If they attack Iran, of course I will fight. But I will be fighting to defend Iran... my land. I will not be fighting for the government and the nuclear cause." ~ Hamid, veteran of the Iran Iraq War
the word check mate is also derived from the persian term used.
"If they attack Iran, of course I will fight. But I will be fighting to defend Iran... my land. I will not be fighting for the government and the nuclear cause." ~ Hamid, veteran of the Iran Iraq War
he means that the players back then had more respect for the game and the pieces (which supposedly symbolised certain things, for example the shah piece (king)) unlike today, where we only play it for fun and the pieces dont really mean anything to us.
Yes , right. due to this respect they never dare to say the king is dead.
Ancient board games from which chess no doubt chess is a derivative have been fouind in Sumerian and Burnt city excavations. dice have even been uncovered at the burnt city.
yup! I have heard of that too, but I havent seen a comparison between
chess and those board games. I dont think its possible that the board
games spread from Sumer to India, however it is possible, that board
games were prevalent in both regions, and arose independently.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum