#Chess pieces chess pieces names how to#

The horses' heads were based on the Elgin Marbles. The king had a crown, the queen had a coronet, the bishop had a mitre, the knight was a horse's head, the rook was a castle, and the pawn was a ball. Cook used symbols in their plainest form. The main patterns prior to the Staunton pattern were the Lund, Merrifield, Calvert, Barleycorn, Selenius and St George patterns. In early 1849 Nathaniel Cook (Staunton's editor at the Illustrated London Times) designed the Staunton set at a time when players were refusing to play with each other's pieces because of the difficulty in distinguishing the various chesspieces. In the early 19th century the most common chess design was the St. He produced his chess sets from 1790 to 1841. The king and queen had openwork crowns, the bishop had a deep clefted mitre, and the rook was a tower on a pedestal. One of the first chessmen designs came from John Calvert in 1790. It has an Eastern leader being carried by an elephant, surrounded by a row of horsemen acting as supporters. It carries an Arab (Kufric) inscription which translates as 'made by Yusuf al-Bahilis.' Its origin is India and it may not even be a chess piece. The set consists of 2 kings, 2 queens, 4 elephants, 4 knights, 3 chariots, and 1 foot soldier.Ī piece that is part of the Charlemange set is a King Elephant. In 1794, after the French Revolution, there were 16 pieces. The pieces may have come to Paris as a gift to French King Philip II or Phillip III. The pieces are dated around 1100 and were probably made in Salerne, Italy. The so-called Charlemagne chessmen was at the Saint Denis Abbey near Naples since the end of the 13th century. He told his minister, Alexander MacLeod, who returned to the sight and exorcised the site, then sold the pieces (67 chessment and 14 plain draughtsmen) to the British Museum for 84 British pounds.Īnother early chess set is the so-called Charlemagne chessmen, which is in the Cabinet des Medailles, Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.

The shepherd was terrified by the expressions on the pieces and fled from the spot. The pieces, perhaps made in 1150 by the Norse, were made of walrus tusk and believed to be of Icelandic in origin.

A local peasant, Calum nan Sprot, who was looking for his cow found a small chamber 15 feet below the top of a sandbank that had been partly washed away. The Lewis pieces were found in March, 1831 in an underground chamber on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis (Uig Bay) in the Outer Hebrides islands of Scotland. The set contains the oldest known ecclesiastical bishop. The pieces come from four different chess sets. 67 Lewis chesspieces are in the British Musueum, the other 11 in the National Musueum. One of the earliest authentic European chesspieces are the Lewis chesspieces, which are now in the British Museum and the National Museum of Antiquites in Edinburgh. Radiocarbon measurements yielded a date of 885 to 1017 AD.

#Chess pieces chess pieces names how to#

The controversy is how to explain how it was possible that chess pieces of Arabic shape were discovered in a tomb of Roman age. The pieces were discovered in a Roman tomb in 1932. It is displayed in the Museo archeologico di Napoli. It was found at Venafro, Italy and is dated about 980 AD. The oldest European chessmen may be some Italian chess pieces made of bone with ivory topping. The four small pieces were made of ivory and preserved in the Mozarabic monastary in Leon, Spain. The Mozarab chess pieces, also known as the pieces of Saint Genadio, may be as old as the beginning of the 10th century. A coin, dated 761 was found with the chesspieces. What was found were seven pieces consisting of a king, chariot, vizier, horse, elephant, and 2 soldiers. The earliest known chesspieces (chatrang) were found at Afrasaib, near Samarkand in Uzbekistan. The piece has a cross on top of it and was found in an old Byzantine or Roman palace. If this is really a chess piece, then it is the oldest chess piece found anywhere in the world. In July 2002, an ivory piece less than 2 inches in size was discovered in Butrint, an ancient Mediterranean city in souther Albania. Countries of the western world translated the earliest names as closely as possible. In Arabic they were shah, firzan, fil, faras, rukhkh, and baidaq. The earliest Persian names were shah, farzin, pil, asp, rukh, and piyada. The earliest chesspieces from India (the birthplace of chess) were called shah (king), wazir (counsellor), fil (bishop), asp (knight), rukh (rook), and piyade (pawn).