About The History Of Chess

Digging even deeper into the past, there is evidence that an even earlier version may have been played in ancient Egypt!

Discovered in 1904 and wonderfully restored by 1992, the tomb of Egyptian Queen Nefertari, Pharaoh Ramses II's "great royal wife" (XIXth Dynasty, 1295-1255 BC) houses descriptions of her as "Lady of the Two Lands" or "Ruler of the South and North."

Of extraordinarily high quality (because of their age) are fascinating, painted bas-reliefs adorning the walls of her tomb, one in particular of which may be viewed here:

http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/nefer4.jpg.

This ancient portrait depicts the Queen seated and extending her left arm over what resembles a game of 10 chess pieces!! If so, her playing pieces would then be the five (5) tall items sitting to the left of the board, and her opponent's playing pieces would be the five (5) shorter items sitting to the right!

Perhaps Queen Nefertari was an accomplished chess player (?). Perhaps this would in part help to explain the origin of her appellation as "Lady of the Two Lands." Of course, we shall never know for sure.

Moreover, closer examination of the (obliterated) image of Queen Nefertari's chair reveals what seems to have been an image that may be aptly described as an artistic rendition of the actual playing board: twelve (12) squares to the left of and twelve (12) squares to the right of some large rectangular block in the middle.

Interestingly, such a 4x7 board design would identically correspond to an earlier version of Xiangqi!! Because a playing board four (4) squares wide would suffice to provide five (5) square corners along either edge of the board as starting positions for a game of five (5) Xiangqi playing pieces per player! As for the "large rectangular block in the middle," the very game design of Xiangqi itself includes a river running down the middle of the board between the two players!!

The rules may have been vastly different (with perhaps a sand dune, hill or field running down the middle of the board rather than a river!), and perhaps the playing pieces were all identical in movement rather than varied like they are today (explaining why Queen Nefertari's game pieces are all identical in appearance), but the similarities are still astounding!

And it may have been played, at least by Queen Nefertari, nearly 3300 years ago!

 

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