April 27, 2008

Hardly a springtime theme ... unless you're T.S. Eliot! Nonetheless, recent burial discoveries remind us that every ending is also a new beginning - and like the older games we find included in ritual burials, some secrets of chess lie within the cycles of the seasons. (pdf)

• Was he a Druid?  A follow-up story on the tomb from which the "doctor's game" was excavated in 1996. 

• See: Dr. Ulrich Schadler's article. (pdf) Iron Age mystery of the 'Essex druid' Grave near Colchester could be the first burial site of an ancient mystic ever to be discovered in Britain

• Cleopatra - a name and a mystique that keeps recyling - (like Tina Turner!)

Tomb of Cleopatra and lover to be uncovered
Archaeologists have revealed plans to uncover the 2000 year-old tomb of ancient Egypt's most famous lovers, Cleopatra and the Roman general Mark Antony later this year. Another link via Free Republic

• Representations of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor from the 1963 film "Cleopatra?" Well, er, not exactly, although the resemblance is somewhat uncanny...  This is a piece from the Columbia Museum of Art exhibition of items from the fabulous Petrie Museum (London): 

Dyad
Egypt, late dynasty 18, 1352-1292 B.C.E.
Limestone and pigment
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology,
University College London.
Photo by Mary Hinkle

• Blast From the Past: Archaeologists excavating the ancient cemetery of Gohar Tepe of Mazandaran, north of Iran, discovered some 600 pieces of bone used in a gambling game inside the tomb of a woman.  From Payvand.com, October 4, 2005!

• No Sacrificial Murder:  The mystery of the Oseberg Viking ship burials of two women solved.  Tests of the bones of two Viking women found in a buried longboat have dispelled 100-year-old suspicions that one was a maid sacrificed to accompany her queen into the afterlife.

• B.C. 'iceman' descendants discovered DNA shows 17 aboriginal people are related to man who lived centuries ago. "Clark and Callaghan are members of the Teslin-Tlingit First Nation, and research shows the iceman moved between the coast and the northern Interior, which would have had him travelling through Teslin-Tlingit traditional territory..."

• See: Tlingit chess pieces

Terminus, endless cycles,
or eternal preservation?

During routine quarry work, an ancient burial cave was discovered in the Philippine island of Mindanao, south of Manila, yielding priceless clay burial artifacts about 2,000 years old.  The latest discovery in the village of Pinol was near another ancient burial site discovered in 1991 where burial jars, shaped in different human forms, had been recovered inside Ayub cave. 

Image:  "Maitum" burial jars discovered at Ayub Cave in 1991, about 1/2 kilometer away from this discovery.  Each jar's facial characteristics is unique.

April 20, 2008

Tracking the trail of board games history -
as written in stone footprints, handprints and
cupholes dotting the world landscape...

• LONDON, (CAIS) -- April 19, 2008 - An ancient four-pointed compass-rose showing directions of ‘four cardinal points’ and a number of board-games carved on rocks discovered in the Iranian island of Kharg in the Persian Gulf, reported Persian service of CHN on Saturday.

• "The history of backgammon is long, complicated, very incomplete - and fascinating. The exact origins of the game remain unknown, though there is much conjecture, a good deal of it both ingenious and farfetched." Oswald Jacoby / John Crawford, 1970

• Goddesschess wanders innocently into the fray! Although the name "backgammon" is claimed to be of English origin, what of the "Ammon" in Backgammon? Were English Tudors truly detached from ritual Egyptian and African backgrounds to Western coronation ritual - or just playing games? Why then does Shakespeare "see Helen in a brow of Egypt"?

"Ammon: Greek name of an Egyptian oracle god, whose main sanctuary was at Siwa in the Libyan desert. Ammon became famous because Alexander the Great claimed to be his son. Ergo - the possibilty that: Ba + Akh = Ammon -- thereby echoing an ancient formula appropriate to the Egyptian senet game's promotional venue.

• At Petra - more cupholes: At the Second Annual Conference for Nabataean Studies, Dr. Bilal Khrisat of the Hashemite University, presented a paper that introduced the conference to the various board games that are found in ancient Petra. That paper was also responsible for introducing Nabataea.net to this fascinating aspect about Petra. A second link can be found here...

• Elvina Track Engraving Site Just inside the Kuringai National Park lies one of the largest engraving sites in Australia.

• Board-games and divination in global cultural history a theoretical, comparative and historical perspective on mankala and geomancy in Africa and Asia – Part I Wim van Binsbergen

"The scholarly literature on board-games continues to be dominated by Murray’s (1913, 1952) classic works History of chess and History of board-games other than chess. In the wake of these studies, also subsequent work on board-games has tended to keep aloof of any consideration of the relation between board-games and divination."

• Board-games and divination in global cultural history a theoretical, comparative and historical perspective on mankala and geomancy in Africa and Asia – Part II Wim van Binsbergen

"The specific imagery of mankala and geomancy is primarily explored within a Neolithic context of animal husbandry, agriculture, hunting, proto-astronomy and the earth cult. The simple formal structure of mankala has tempted several archaeologists to interpret as mankala boards Neolithic cupmarked artefacts; the paper addresses the difficulties involved in such an ascription, and formulates a ritual model for the possible origin of mankala. At this point the paper foreshadows the more extensive and technical argument on cupmarks, mankala and Palaeolithic astronomy."

"You can't get there from here..."

Cupmarks - footprints, handprints and dinosaur tracks... too many bridges too far for chess? Perhaps it all depends upon who is footing the bill for research...

• Walking as Art The Romans were accustomed to carve pairs of footprints on a stone with the inscription pro itu et reditu, "for the journey and return". They used them for protective rites on leaving for a journey and for thanksgiving for a safe return, when the traveller would place his or her feet in the footprints to mark the beginning or end of the undertaking.

• Chess - A Living Fossil Gerhard Josten "Written sources and statuary artefacts on the one hand as well as theories, speculations and legends on the other have formed the more or less well-founded basis for the past thousand years for all those looking for the answer to the question as to how the game of chess came into being."

Jelly Fish

Chess can turn a human brain to jelly and the history of chess seems to have shapeshifting properties that do just about the same thing. Why this preoocupation with the chess octupus and how it evolved? Well... backgammon is thought to be a smaller fish than chess - but... watch where you step!! Those tentacles are poisonous...

• With JellyFish™ the first neural network based backgammon software becomes commercially available. At this time JellyFish™ is significantly stronger than any other backgammon software. The availability of such strong software has a deep impact on the understanding of the game.

Jelly Fish REALLY?!!
"From goo to you" - the wonderul interconnectedness of all life - and boardgames in general ...

• Through a massive analysis of the evolutionary biology of animals it has been suggested that this jellyfish might just be the direct progeny of the first animal on Earth making it the earliest member of the kingdom that includes insects, fish, reptiles, birds, mammals (including humans) and many more or all the ones that belong to the kingdom Animalia.

Normally experts were supposing the sponge to be the first true animal because it is the simplest known, lacking in distinct tissues and nervous system which are two of the jelly characteristics.

Jelly Chess
(the natural evolution - of course!)

• Rubber chess set... Designed by Buro fur Form for umbra this chess set has all the playing pieces made entirely from rubber. You can throw the pieces into your opponent without the fear of hurting him. I’m not saying to do this, but it’s just your insurance if you loose the game and you have a choleric temperament.

April 13. 2008

It's all about one Roman soldier's road
and where it leads today!

Roman soldier's gift found - David Ottewell 10/ 4/2008 He was many miles from home - a Roman soldier posted to Manchester, perhaps feeling cold and lonely, longing for loved ones left behind.

It is believed that Aelius Victor may have been a centurion commander posted from Germany - where worship of Hananeftis and Ollototis originates.

• Hananeftis ?

• Hneftafl ? - a venerable board game of 4 warlike goddesses and one besieged king... (and why are we not surprized?)

• Ollototis ?

• Matres ? The Celtic and Germanic Mother Goddesses

• Matrikas ? Matrikas (Sanskrit: lit. "The Mothers"), also called Matara and Matris, are a band of Hindu goddesses, who always appear in a group.

• See also: Icons

• Orissa - (pdf file) a possible location for the origins of chess referred to in H.J.R. Murray's only footnoted entry acknowledging the work of the esteemed Spanish historian Don Jose Brunet y Bellet. Bellet's hypothesis actually cited an Egyptian origin for chess.

• Sixty-four - In one of the religious traditions of India, there are 8 major forms of Devi, the Goddess. These are known as the Ashta Matrikas (8 Mothers.) Each of these has 8 attendants and so we arrive at the number, 64. Each of the 64 can be further correlated to the currents or winds of the human "etheric" body, or viewed as a type of neurotic or unproductive tendency (if not balanced by the others.) 

Bejeweled Anglo-Saxon Burial Suggests Cult
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

April 11, 2008 -- In seventh century England, a woman's jewelry-draped body was laid out on a specially constructed bed and buried in a grave that formed the center of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery, according to British archaeologists who recently excavated the site in Yorkshire. Prior coverage

April 6 , 2008

Did the Chinese mistake a "cannon" in xiang qi (Chinese Chess) for the artistic "canon of proportions"? Well, chess and related board games are canonic expressions of a particular kind and all manner of things do get shot out of many different canons ... This week's meander through some explosive artwork and crisp photograhic images highlight the craft and courage of artists everywhere...

It is well known that representations of the human figure in ancient Egyptian art usually conformed to highly stylized principles in which the proportions between the different parts of the human body were determined by a set of fixed laws constituting a Canon of Art.

Museum of Harmony and the Golden Section
Mathematical Connections in Nature, Science and Art By Dr. Oleksiy Stakhov

Simulacra and simulations "The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth — it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true. "Is the canon of chess more ideal than "real"?

Marion Drennen's Quantum Connections A Louisiana Artist working in Acrylic on Board, Marion's paintings incorporate the concepts of NUMBER and QUANTUM PHYSICS in an effort to evoke a sense of connectedness ...across time and space, within ourselves and in our relationships.

Mary Harrsch takes us on a photographic tour of several places. some of which may be of interest to chess hounds and board game researchers. Her photographs of New York's Metropolitain Museum of fine Arts exhibits bring back a few fond memories...

A visually stimulating tour de force from Ron Reznick's photographic archives... The J. Paul Getty Collection and L.A. County Museum of Art vie with some extraordinary wildlife shots that make this site a pleasure to tour.

An early canonic concept? The Sun-Headed Men
This world's man establishes the connection through images with the other world or his inner-world, or with the subconscious - if may we speak with terms of modern psychology. He makes models of these images, he either buries these models into earth or draws them onto rocks.

Mind of a Rock? Rock Art is "semantic" and chess pieces apparently have their own stories to tell. But what about those rocks? Talking rocks is the subject of this brief essay on consciousness. "Panpsychism may be easier to parody than to refute. But even if it proves a cul-de-sac in the quest to understand consciousness, it might still help rouse us from a certain parochiality in our cosmic outlook."

Homage to Pythagoras

From: Marion Drennen's Quantum Connections

March 30, 2008

A lyrical ode to the starry eyes of chess,
the game of the goddess!

My love must be a kind of blind love
I can't see anyone but you.

Archeoastronomy - The home page - cum blog of Alan Salut - a PHd candidate involved in finishing up his thesis on ancient astronomy and Greek colonisation. Lots of good links and insights about this relatively new field of study.

Are the stars out tonight?
I don't know if it's cloudy or bright
I Only Have Eyes For You, Dear.

More archeoastronomy - from Cloudbait Observatory, located under the dark skies of the central Colorado Rocky Mountains. A personal site from Chris L. Peterson that is worth exploring in its entirety.

The moon maybe high
but I can't see a thing in the sky,
'Cause I Only Have Eyes For You.

"Origins and Meanings of the Eight-Point Star"
"The shape that most clearly represents Morocco in my mind’s eye is the eight-point star. It is a simple shape made by overlapping two squares..." As we know there are other places perhaps more ancient that found this star quite important. Even so, this personal site offers a colourful tour of Moroccan culture.

I don't know if we're in a garden,
or on a crowded avenue.

The oldest solar observatory in the Americas has been found, suggesting the existence of early, sophisticated Sun cults, scientists report. It comprises a group of 2,300-year-old structures, known as the Thirteen Towers, which are found in the Chankillo archaeological site, Peru.

You are here
So am I
Maybe millions of people go by,
but they all disappear from view.

China finds ancient observatory: Archaeologists in northern China have reportedly found one of the world's oldest observatories.The remains, discovered near the city of Linfen in Shanxi province, are thought to be about 4,100 years old.

 

And I Only Have Eyes For You.

EXTRA!

Jan Xena, goddesschesses' very own warrior-goddess-reporter extraordinaire locks into the red transporter room at Piccadilly Circus and emerges on the other side of the known chess world!

EEEK! Does her recent visit with the distinguished court of Zenobia, "Empress of the East" suggest a hidden plot for universal conquest by these two powerful chess femmes?!! OR shall we take this Sassanian Origin for the Game of Chess as just an empty handed threat? My personal experience and the research of Dr. Ricardo Calvo say we should prepare for the unexpected!

March 23, 2008

And so begins this week's reconstructive adventure into the ancient art and science of tattoo...

"The reconstruction of ancient games is a very complicated subject where archaeological evidence, literary sources in Greek and Latin, and knowledge of general mechanisms of board games must be combined." - Ulrich Schadler Board Game Studies

(click image)

The Unique History of Chess Pieces Chess pieces are not only the rank-and-file of a chess game, but they are also the heart and soul of the chess game experience.

For more examples of incised markings, see Anna Contadini's collection of Islamic chess pieces.

Tattoos The Ancient and Mysterious History By Cate Lineberry- Smithsonian.com, January 01, 2007 Humans have marked their bodies with tattoos for thousands of years. These permanent designs - sometimes plain, sometimes elaborate, always personal - have served as amulets, status symbols, declarations of love, signs of religious beliefs, adornments and even forms of punishment.

Ancient Egypt - the Light of the World by Gerald Massey Book 2 of 12 - Totemism, Tattoo and Fetishism as Forms of Sign Language

Tattoo History - A Brief History of Tattoos and Body Art Being one with the group or for standing out, the tattoo has always been a good bet. Here is a brief history of tattoos.

From red Hot Pawn: "I have several tattoos; one of which is really large, and I'd like to get a chess tattoo on my ribs. Let me dig up the image I've in mind."

From Edinburgh "I've always wanted a chess tattoo. So when I found out there was a new Tattooist at the West Port I went along to fulfill my dream."

More tattoo amusement from Susan Polgar's Blog.

Tattoo removal with Dr. Chess (!!) simply traces the laser light over the tattoo to begin the fading process. The lasers do not burn or cut the skin in any way. The skin remains intact, except for an occasional blister

Tattoo You or Tattoo Me?

(click image)

March 16, 2008

Out of Africa, Not Once But Twice - Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News March 14, 2008 -- Modern humans are known to have left Africa in a wave of migration around 50,000 years ago, but another, smaller group -- possibly a different subspecies -- left the continent 50,000 years earlier, suggests a new study.

Wine-carrying ship dates back 2,300 years The vessel, dating from the late Classical period (mid-fourth century B.C.) is one of only a few such ships to have been found so well-preserved, said University of Cyprus visiting marine archaeologist Stella Demesticha

Baltic yields 'perfect' shipwreck: A near-intact shipwreck apparently dating from the 17th century has been found in the Baltic Sea, Swedish television has said.

Did more frequent El Ninos 5,000 years ago drive early Peruvian hunter-gatherers from the coasts to the dry valleys of Norte Chico, forming the foundation for all subsequent Andean civilizations? Along the coast of Peru, a mysterious civilization sprang up about 5,000 years ago. This was many centuries before the Incan Empire. Yet these people were sophisticated.

Satellites spot lost Guatemala Mayan temples: GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Ancient Mayan astronomers aligned their soaring temples with the stars and now modern archeologists have found the ruins of hidden cities in the Guatemalan jungle by peering down from space.

Mayan Warfare FROM BLOG: Song of the Open Road - I am on a continuous vagabond journey around the world. Tips on how to travel the world on the cheap as well as yarns of the Open Road

The Geometry of Music

When you first hear them, a Gregorian chant, a Debussy prelude and a John Coltrane improvisation might seem to have almost nothing in common--except that they all include chord progressions and something you could plausibly call a melody. But music theorists have long known that there's something else that ties these disparate musical forms together.

http://music.princeton.edu/~dmitri/

Geometry, Music and Healing by Ani Williams

March 9, 2008

"It's in the cards!"
"No! It's the dice, stupid!"
They seek here, there and everywhere...

Why dice, cards and chess?
Let's ask the old man...

Stuart Culin's publications are a major source for anyone intersted in the ethnogrophy of games. Consequently, this page includes detailed biographical information about Culin with an annotated bibliography of his many publications.

Culin's work includes: "Comprehensive exploration of chess, playing cards, and other table and board games as played in Europe, Asia, North America, and South America. Some content deals with similarity of North American Indian games and the games played in Europe and Asia.

Trionfi is the earlier name of Tarot cards, and that's, what this site is dedicated to. "We want to present material useful for the research of the oldest Tarot cards, and, of course, also to the question, where these objects come from and how they developed."

Sound familiar? If not - try this site instead! LOL!

The history of playing cards in Europe commences around 1370-1380. Out of an apparent void, a constellation of references in early literature emerge pointing to the sudden arrival of playing cards, principally in Belgium, Germany, Spain and Italy. Of course dice and certain board games were already long-established, and so playing cards were probably a new and novel addition to the repertoire of gambling pastimes.

Various contradicting suggestions have been given to explain the original meaning of the word Tarot. They range from old Egyptian origin to a cardmaker from the French village Taraux who may have produced the original Tarot cards. The true remains an enigma.

Other Chinese playing-cards (which they themselves regard as gambling cards) use systems rooted in dominoes and Chinese chess- and Rummy-type games which were not known in Europe until relatively recently.

Alf Cooke was an important producer of playing cards and card games in the UK during the period 1920-1970. The company had been founded in 1866 by Alf Cooke, in Leeds, as a general printer. Playing cards were first produced under the name of  'British Playing Cards' during the years 1920-25 with a variety of unusual court card designs. The name was changed to 'Universal Playing Card Company Limited' in 1925.

Rounding up a handful of random quotes

Iacta alea est. - The die is cast.
Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon

The dice of Zeus fall ever luckily.
Sophocles

The best throw of the dice is to throw them away.
Advice from an old English proverb

Whose game was empires and whose stakes were thrones.
Whose table earth, whose dice were human bones.
Lord Byron

I cannot believe God plays dice with the universe.
Albert Einstein

Not only does God play dice with the universe, He's using loaded dice.
John Ford

Not only does God play dice, He throws them where we cannot see them.
Steven Hawkings

Triumph depends on a roll of Fate's dice; the ultimate prize is a place in Heaven.
Friedrich Nietsche

March 2, 2008

SPRING FASHION - PREVIEW EDITION
Windows on ancient "appearances"
- Traditional attacks on Eros and Justice -
or
Going in and out of style - with a royal bang

Women in Ancient Egypt by Caroline Seawright (whom we admire for her excellent articles on AE) "In the ancient world, Egypt stood out as a land where women were treated differently... women were much more free than their counterparts in other lands... though they were not equal with men, both men and women in Egypt accepted that everyone had their roles in ma'at (the natural order of the universe)... and that the roles of men and women were different."

Jezebel Special at Biblical Archaeology Review:  Fit for a Queen - Jezebel's Royal Seal; How Bad was Jezebel?; First Lady Jezebel.

Erich Lessing: Looking out the window. Archaeologists have unearthed dozens of small ivories depicting women gazing out small, square windows. Beneath the face is a row of elaborate columns; the windows have several recessed frames. This ivory comes from Arslan Tash, in northern Syria; a less well-preserved example was discovered in Samaria (see photo of ivory from Samaria), the capital city of Ahab and Jezebel. More than 500 ivory fragments were found in Samaria, and although it is tempting to identify them with the pagan cult materials that Jezebel introduced into Ahab’s court, the dating of the ivories is uncertain. Some ascribe them to the ninth century B.C.E., when Ahab ruled, others to the eighth.

The most common motif found on Phoenician ivories, the woman at the window may represent the goddess Astarte (biblical Asherah) looking out a palace window. Perhaps this widespread imagery influenced the biblical author’s description of Jezebel, a follower of Astarte, looking out the palace window as Jehu approached (2 Kings 9:30)

Looks like poor Jezebel might have received better justice in Egypt and Phoenicia... But, that might not have always been the golden rule...

The small house shrine published here for the first time provides significant support for the contention that the Israelite God, Yahweh, did indeed have a consort. At least this was true in the minds of many ordinary ancient Israelites, in contrast to the priestly elite.

In what I call folk religion, or “popular religion,” Yahweh’s consort is best identified as “Asherah,” the old Canaanite mother goddess. From "A Temple Built for Two: Did Yahweh Share a Throne with His Consort Asherah?" by William G. Dever.  At Goddesschess we ask "did Asherah share a throne with her consort Yahweh?"

Oh those sexy Viking women - outfits banned by the early Church!  Pssst - did they really wear blouses underneath those open-front dresses?

Dress for success and a game of chess!

Imagine what this overdress would have looked like on the queen or princess who wore it, 4,500 years ago...

Bead-net dress
Egypt, Qau, tomb 978, dynasty 5, 2494-2345 B.C.E.
Faience with modern string
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London.
Photo by Mary Hinkley

This is just one of the treasures on exhibit right now (through June 8, 2008) at the Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, South Carolina (USA), on loan from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London. More images online here...

February 24, 2008

It is written - but is it understood?

Exciting discovery: 38-pound stone holds an ancient alphabet: On the last day of his 2005 archaeological dig in Israel, Ronald Tappy was up in a cherry picker, photographing his site, when a supervisor asked him to look at "some scratches" a college volunteer had found on a stone.

London, (CAIS) Two Sasanian inscriptions written in Sasanid-Pahlavi (Middle Persian) language have been discovered in Kohan-Dedz historical site in northeastern Iran. An Irano-French archeology team has discovered two inscriptions written in Sasanid-Pahlavi language during the third phase of excavations in Kohan-Dedz.

Archaeology: Ancient Writing or Modern Fakery? Ravenna, Italy Yousef Madjidzadeh, chief of excavations at Jiroft in southeastern Iran, has found tablets that he believes display a hitherto unknown writing system. But the circumstances surrounding their excavation have raised doubts about the tablets' authenticity.

Are there similarities between the "Jiroft script" and the "Indus script?" Like a number of other ancient Indus "decipherments" in the past century, the work of Dr. Asko Parpola (University of Helsinki, website) has concluded that the Indus sign system represented an ancient Dravidian language.

Want to translate English into Egyptian hieroglyphics? Or into Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian cuneiform? There is a online translation tool created by a University of Advancing Technology instructor to do it for you!

The moving finger writes - and having written,
moves on...

Is Salvador Dali giving us the finger?

Auction Watch: Dali "Finger" Set sold for $23,400 at Gallery of the Palm Beaches auction on January 7, 2008.

A close up look at the details of the digits of renowned artist Salvador Dali (Spanish 1904-1989) could be found in the figures of a chess set designed by Dali at the request of his friend Marcel Duchamp in 1964 for the American Chess Federation. All of the pieces of the set were modeled after Dali’s fingers except the two Queens which used one of Dali’s wife’s fingers crowned with a tooth and the rooks which were modeled after the salt cellars of the Hotel Saint Regis in New York. Of the thirty two pieces sixteen are sterling silver and sixteen are silver gilt. The set was cast by F. J. Cooper of Philadelphia and was signed and numbered “AE 45.”

But! But! But!
This auctioned set is actually a remake of the original Dali set, which, in my opinion, is more aesthetically pleasing. I am not sure if it is a reproduction of an original or not, but a version of the Dali chess set resides in the Contemporary Works section of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and many of the works on display there are the Real McCoy. (DMc)

"I don't want to claim that Fischer was afraid of me. Most probably he was afraid of himself. He believed that the world champion has no right to make mistakes. But with such a belief you can't play chess, because you can't avoid mistakes." Anatoly Karpov

"Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponent’s mind.” Robert J. Fischer

"Nobody taught Bobby. Geniuses, like Beethoven, Shakespeare and Fischer come out of the head of Zeus. They seem to be genetically programmed, know before instructed." John Collins

"Perhaps the biggest surprise is that Fischer lasted as long as he did. The only other American chess genius, Paul Morphy, was found dead in a bathtub in 1884 at the age of 47, surrounded by women's shoes." Will Buckley (The Guardian, January 19, 2008)

February 17, 2008

Did music lead to medicine? The ancient Chinese think so. "Pleasant music works to cultivate one's temperament, to purify one's mind, and to deliver a sense of beauty. But has it ever occurred to you that the creation of music was originally intended as a medicine to cure?"

Ancient Chinese Astronomy: New insights from old information China has the world’s longest-running observations of the sky: though based in astrology, they are of unique importance to astronomy today.

Pair of Indian Hardstone-Inlaid Marble Games TABLE-TOP 20TH CENTURY Each of square outshape with moulded edge and frieze variously inlaid with foliate arabesques around a specimen marble chess-board

24½ in. (62.5 cm.) square (2)
On auction at Christie's (Lot 0187, estimated 4,000-6,000 GBP) on March 19, 2008 at the London, King Street location (Sale Number 7569)

A rare edition of MANDRAGORIAS, SEU HISTORIA SHAHILUDII, VIZ. EJUSDEM ORIGO, ANTIQUITAS, USUSQUE PER TOTUM ORIENTEM CELEBERRIMUS (HISTORIA NERDILUDII). OXFORD: SHELDONIAN THEATRE, 1694, by Thomas Hyde (1636-1703), from the library of the Earls of Macclesfield (Shirburn Castle) is going on auction at Sotheby's

(Lot 4070, estimated 800—1,000 GBP) Sale: L08400
Location: London, New Bond Street
Auction Dates: Session 1: Thu, 13 Mar 08 10:3

 

 

 

The latest on the ongoing controversy about repatriation of the Lewis Chess Pieces. "UK CULTURE minister Margaret Hodge has dismissed Alex Salmond's demand for the Lewis Chessmen to be returned to Scotland as "nonsense

 

Women in Black

 

A quad of chess queens this month. 

The recently concluded 2008 Gibtelecom (Gibraltar) international tournament, in its 6th year, attracted chess stars from all around the world to compete in beautiful surroundings and for generous prize money. 

A separate Women's Event hosted some of the best female chessplayers in the world. Here are the top four finishers, all with 6.5/9 (they split the top 4 prize money of £9,000): (1st place) IM Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan (GEO 2457),  (2nd place) IM Victoria Cimilyte (LTU 2475) (Cimilyte is married to super GM Alexi Shirov and has two children); (4th place) GM Antoaneta Stefanova (BUL 2464) (Stefanova, who earned her GM title in 2003 with a peak rating of 2560, was 2004 Women's World Chess Champion) and (3rd place) 16-year old IM Dronavalli Harika (IND 2455). 

These beautiful women from around the world amply demonstrate that chess ain't just for geeks! (or Muggles)...

February 3, 2008
a Special Focus on
Deterioration/Destruction of Ancient Sites

An Iranian-Italian archaeological team has started an emergency operation to restore one of the damaged bastions of Bam Citadel, severely damaged in an earthquake in 2003

Islamic Republic in Iran destroyed 60% of the architectural and archeological remains of Pol-Borideh in Chahar-Mahal Bakhtiari province overnight for road construction. The ancient site was registered on the National Heritage List.

CAIS reports that the Iranian Islamic regime destroyed the 2200-year-old Khoda-Afarid bridge also known as Negin, in Shiniyar district of Masjed-Soleyman in Khuzestan province

Swat Valley Buddha (Pakistan) defaced with dynamite by Islamic radicals

Silk Road art at Dunhuang Oasis in danger from shifting desert

Egypt's ancient rock art endangered by tourists who leave behind their filth and grafitti

Historians hustle as flood from dam project threatens ancient Alans town discovered in the Russian Republic of North Ossetia

Senet:
"His face in back - his face in front"
Still kicking after 5000 Years!
"I am yesterday and today - I know tomorrow"

"Located in the garden of the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum & Planetarium in San Jose is a large version of the Egyption board game called Senet."

What was senet? More than some chess historians would ever want to know, it seems. The game is described as being similar to backgammon. Obviously there was more to it than meets the eye. Ancient Egyptians considered it sublime.

February 3, 2008

From the very high

History of the depictions of the Stars, Constellations and other Celestial objects This site means what it says. Lots of excellent working links and a useful resource for all times and seasons.

Anthropology unites humankind rather than dividing it Only by understanding our cultural differences can we hope to get along on this planet, says Luke Freeman

Video: Art Theft's Odd Couple An ex-art smuggler and the former head of Scotland Yard's Art and Antiquities Squad have joined forces to expose illegal trade in ancient treasures.

to the lowest of low

UN vandals spray graffiti on Sahara’s prehistoric art Spectacular prehistoric depictions of animal and human figures created up to 6,000 years ago on Western Saharan rocks have been vandalised by United Nations peacekeepers. (A spry painted pox upon THEIR houses!)

and some points in between...

Ancient Mass Sacrifice, Riches Discovered in China Tomb A 2,500-year-old tomb containing nearly four dozen victims of human sacrifice has been excavated in eastern China, yielding a treasure trove of precious artifacts and new insights into ritual customs during the era of Confucius, archaeologists say.

Surprise Egypt Tombs Yield Ornate Coffins, Dog Mummies Four ancient tombs containing well-preserved mummies and ornate painted coffins have been unearthed in El Faiyum, an oasis about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Cairo (see map). (See photos of the tomb treasures.)

Is the United States Chess Federation in Trouble?
By Dylan Loeb McClain: "the federation’s finances... are not in good shape and the federation is projected to run a significant deficit..." (Why are we not surprised?)

Y