Monday, September 20, 2010

Playing games with archaeology


Did you know: the work checkmate comes from the Persian "Shah Mat", which means "the king is dead"...

Chess seems to have followers across the globe, and further back in history it was no different. It is disputed as to where the game was invented, but likely candidates are northern India or China. By the year 1,000 A.D. the popular game had spread to Europe.

Now a collection of 2,500 year old chess pieces have been discovered in China. The 10 pieces are made of bone and were found piled one atop the other. According to the researcher Fan Shuai, from the Hebei Institute of Archaeology, such chess pieces are very rare. Read more here.

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