A Curious Rock Present in Jordan Might Really Be The Oldest Chess Piece to Date

Chess has been entertaining and irritating gamers for near 1,500 years, although its origins aren’t all that clear. Now one archaeologist thinks he has found the oldest chess piece in existence, at round 1,300 years outdated.

The sandstone object, which has a passing resemblance to a rook, was excavated in 1991 at Humayma (or Humeima) in southern Jordan, as soon as upon a time an essential buying and selling publish.

Primarily based on a brand new evaluation by archaeologist John Oleson, from the College of Victoria in Canada, the piece might predate present finds by 100 years or so: he says the item is a better match to historical chess items than it’s to non secular artefacts of the time.

(John Peter Oleson)

“Though the form, rectangular in part with splayed, horn-like projections on the prime, resembles a Nabataean altar or betyl, parallels with early Islamic chess items are way more convincing,” explains Oleson.

The form of the rock matches up with items dated to later in time, carved out of stone, wooden or ivory, and found in the identical area, Oleson says. With the sport of chess thought to have been introduced westward from India by travelling retailers and diplomats, the situation of the discovering is sensible, too.

Humayma, the positioning of the invention, lies on the Through Nova Traiana, a well-known commerce route of the time: it might nicely be that the traditional Roman street performed a giant half within the sport making its approach to the Center East and Europe.

References to chess may be discovered way back to the seventh century in Islamic texts, not lengthy earlier than the date that this rook is believed to originate from.

Whereas it does not look precisely just like the rooks or castles of a modern-day chess set, the sport and its items have modified considerably over time – early rooks have been considered designed to seem like dual-house chariots, and this piece may be a duplicate.

Nonetheless, the case is not closed but: extra detailed evaluation goes to be required to ascertain that this unassuming block of sandstone can actually declare to be the oldest chess piece discovered so far.

Outdated chess items can appeal to six-figure sums, just like the piece auctioned off earlier this 12 months, which originated from Norway. This too would have taken the place of the modern-day rook – however on this case it was generally known as a warder.

The warder is believed so far from the late 12th century or early 13th century, so the chess piece, as recognized by Oleson, could possibly be nearly twice as outdated.

And whereas the fundamentals of the sport have remained the identical for hundreds of years, we have seen numerous change too – these days, computer systems may give one of the best human gamers an excellent sport.

The findings have been introduced on the 2019 annual assembly of the American Faculties of Oriental Analysis.