Europe's Oldest Known Chess Piece
July 30 — During excavations last week at a Roman era palace in Butrint, Albania, researchers working in an upper level reception hall found a tiny ivory object dating to 465 AD. They believe it is Europe's oldest known chess piece.
If the identification is correct, the object predates the world's earliest written texts about chess from the fifth to the seventh centuries in India, one of the most notable being a 606 AD Sanskrit romance. It further suggests that trade and exchange of cultural information from India and Asia to Europe and the Mediterranean region was more widespread than previously thought.
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Comments
The picture shown does not remotely resemble any known chess piece prior to the late middle ages in Europe and none at all anywhere else. If it does date from the 5th to 7th centuries, it is almost certainly not a chess piece.
Michael Mark
Posted by: michael mark | August 10, 2002 7:26 AM