A compact and comprehensive chronicle of the worldwide origins and history of the game of chess—from 500 A.D. to its modern gameplay today Have you ever wondered what the pieces in the chessboard mean or why each piece has a unique move? In A Short History of Chess, Henry A. Davidson explores the ancient roots of chess and the developments around the world that led to the modern version of the popular game. For people new to the game and experienced players alike, Davidson includes a polyglot—a lexicon of chess terms in the forty major languages of the world. And for the skeptical reader or those interested in learning more, there is also a working bibliography of English language references.

This inquiry concerns the cultural history of the chess-player. It takes as its premise the idea that the chess-player has become a fragmented collection of images, underpinned by challenges to, and confirmations of, chess’s status as an intellectually-superior and socially-useful game, particularly since the medieval period. Yet, the chess-player is an understudied figure. No previous work has shone a light on the chess-player itself. Increasingly, chess-histories have retreated into tidy consensus. This work aspires to a novel reading of the figure as both a flickering beacon of reason and a sign of monstrosity. To this end, this book, utilising a wide range of sources, including newspapers, periodicals, detective novels, science-fiction, and comic-books, is underpinned by the idea that the chess-player is a pluralistic subject used to articulate a number of anxieties pertaining to themes of mind, machine, and monster.

With more than 400 illustrations, and detailed maps, this immense and deeply researched account of the history of chess covers not only the modern international game, derived from Persian and Arab roots, but a broad spectrum of variants going back 1500 years, some of which are still played in various parts of the world. The evolution of strategic board games, especially in India, China and Japan, is discussed in detail. Many more recent chess variants (board sizes, new pieces, 3-D, etc.) are fully covered. Instructions for play are provided, with historical context, for every game presented.

An epic work that took more than a decade to complete, A History of Chess, originally published in 1913, is a historic undertaking that shattered preconceptions about the game upon publication. Over a century later, Murray’s research and conclusions, in which he argues that chess originated in India, are still widely accepted by most chess historians. Undertaking such a pioneering task, the scope of which has never been attempted before or since, Murray taught himself to read Arabic in order to decipher historical manuscripts on the game and its beginnings. His study unravels the history of the game as it evolved from its Asiatic beginnings, through the role chess played in Europe during the Middle Ages, and up until the nineteenth century with the arrival of modern chess as we know it. A History of Chess includes transcribed diagrams of important games, as well as some of the more famous historical chess figurines, such as the Lewis chessmen. No single work on the game of chess has become close to touching Murray’s in breadth or significance.

For almost a millennium, a modest wooden ship lay underwater off the coast of Serçe Limani, Turkey, filled with evidence of trade and objects of daily life. The ship, now excavated by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University, trafficked in both the Byzantine and Islamic worlds of its time. The ship is known as “the Glass Wreck” because its cargo included three metric tons of glass cullet, including broken Islamic vessels, and eighty pieces of intact glassware. In addition, it held glazed Islamic bowls, red-ware cooking vessels, copper cauldrons and buckets, wine amphoras, weapons, tools, jewelry, fishing gear, remnants of meals, coins, scales and weights, and more. This first volume of the complete site report introduces the discovery, the methods of its excavation, and the conservation of its artifacts. Chapters cover the details of the ship, its contents, the probable personal possessions of the crew, and the picture of daily shipboard life that can be drawn from the discoveries.