Goddesschess Random Roundup

February 22, 2009
Pachyderm Picassos and More!

Can jumbo elephants really paint?
Are they the only animals on Earth, apart from human beings, that can create pictorial images? Intrigued by stories, naturalist Desmond Morris set out to find the truth...

A nice overview of chess history
Includes some much needed graphics showing the changing move of the "elephant" in Chinese vs. Persian/Arabic/Medieval chess... A true story?

Year of the Earth Cow - Tibetan Year 2136
Tibetan Year of the Earth Cow ("female ox") begins Feb. 25th 2009. In the Hsia calendar, The Year of the Ox, 2009, is symbolized by two elements – with earth sitting on top of earth. So is the same element on top of each other. According to the cycle of birth and destruction, which governs the inter-relationship between the elements, earth and earth are like brothers and sisters and so they do not have birth nor destructive relationship with each other.

The artistry of the VIIIth Tai Situ:
Its impact on Tibetan tangka painting, at the Rubin Museum, New York, until August. The same year that Sir Joshua Reynolds painted Samuel Johnson, a venerable lama in the southeastern-most province of Tibet ordered silver finials for a set of paintings on cloth called thangkas. By that time in 1772, the 72-year-old Situ Panchen Chökyi Jungne [1700-1774] had already single-handedly revitalized an entire Tibetan artistic tradition.

Christie's auction controversy reveals China's dilemma in retrieving lost relics BEIJING, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- Two bronze animal sculptures, looted from a Chinese royal garden 149 years ago, will be auctioned in Paris late this month. They symbolize a dilemma China is facing in retrieving many of its cultural treasures from abroad... A team of 81 Chinese lawyers are planning to sue Pierre Berge in France if the auction of the two sculptures is not stopped.

81? There's that number again! Preparation under way for 81st Academy Awards No elephants are up for any awards this year...

Fake art stars in New York show
An exhibition which has opened in New York takes the unlikely step of placing fake works of art on display.

Fakirs of the world, unite!
Indian charmers want their snakes... Some 1,000 snake charmers have staged a rally in eastern India, protesting against a law that has made their profession illegal.

If Arthur C. Clarke’s monolith appears in the forest, does anyone see it?

The perfect chess room... If you want to get away from it all and you really don’t want anyone to find you, then the newest concept hotel designed by Swedish firm Tham & Videgard Hansson is for you...

OMG! Did Google Earth find Atlantis?
Google is officially denying widespread Internet rumors that its Google Earth software located the mythical sunken city of Atlantis off the coast of Africa.

More graphics here - A "grid of streets" on the seabed at one of the proposed locations of the lost city of Atlantis has been spotted on Google Ocean.

Feb. 5, 2009 -- A rare mummified child from the early period of Egyptian history was discovered buried with a bright green amulet stone once believed to hold magical powers, according to a new study.

Easter Island Statue Project

On January 5, 2009, the Archaeological Institute of America awarded a $94,000 grant to the Easter Island Statue Project. The grant will help the project develop preservation techniques to arrest the rapid deterioration of the statues, resulting from climate change, tourism, and the volcanic stone's fragile nature.

Picture Gallery

JanXena - standing by her man!

February 15, 2009
Underwater Edition

The Arthur Murray School of Chess Dancing Presents: Valentine's Day Chess Dance! Belated best wishes to all!

Found in Iraq: "King Tut" Middle East News
Feb 12, 2009, 16:48 GM - 'The discovery of this statue shows us that the name of Pharaoh's Castle, was not invented out of vacuum, but rather arose out of historical fact,' Ahmed told Akanews. 'This calls for strengthening archaeological research ties between the territory of Kurdistan and the Arab Republic of Egypt.'

History of the Kurds presents a useful synopsis of Kurdish interaction with surrounding nations and cultures.

A very large and rewarding gallery of Kurdistan photos

"Noah's Flood" Not Rooted in Reality, After All?
Bruce Dorminey - for National Geographic News
February 6, 2009 "The ancient flood that some scientists think gave rise to the Noah story may not have been quite so biblical in proportion, a new study says."

Cambay - Seven years after...
• For the most part, a strange silence reigns over the Gulf of Cambay proposal... MSU to help unveil mysteries of the deep - Ayesha Khan Vadodara, October 21: "The archaeology and geology departments of M S University are all set to lend their expertise in the underwater exploration that will be carried out shortly in the Gulf of Cambay."

• Pre-Harappan bricks found in Gulf of Cambay
18 Jul 2004, 2209 hrs IST, TNN - VADODARA: In an underwater exploration in the Gulf of Cambay, National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) scientists discovered almost 9,500-year-old bricks made of clay and straw.

• In this context, these lines from Archaeology: Theories, Methods, Practice, a respected publication by Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahns, take on relevance: "Why, beyond reasons of scientific curiosity, do we want to know about the past? And whose past is it anyway?... the past is big business...the past is politically highly charged, ideologically powerful and significant."

A very large and rewarding gallery of Kurdistan photos

Etruscan Burials: The Tomb of The Lionesses (Tomba delle Leonesse) Period: around 520 BCE.

Shape: Single chamber Ceiling: the wide ceiling of the tomb is decorated with a brown and white chessboard pattern. The chamber has six red Tuscan order columns complete with capitals and bases painted on the walls. (four at the corners and two in each of the side walls. These columns give the tomb the appearance of a prothesis (funerary tent). More examples of Etruscan tombs

Persian Dances Will Celebrate Persian New Year
MARCH 8, 2009 Through compelling music, breath-taking costuming, and memorable choreography, Laurel Victoria Gray and her Silk Road Dance Company have opened a door to an world that has long remained mysterious to the West... Janet Jubran, M.A., The Gilded Serpent

Silk Road Dance Company returns to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for a series of concerts to celebrate Persian New Year. In addition to Tajik, Uzbek, Turkmen and Persian dance, audience will enjoy an appearance by the hero Rustam and a huge dragon.

February 8, 2009
Fractured Fairytales

Our modern view of how and why ancient civilizations constructed their early games presents a fractured puzzle. However, the artisans who undertook the creation of these games seemed to know exactly what earlier games and related symbols to reference and why. Some of these consitencies form an indelible "red thread" though the labyrinth of time and space...

Tne Royal Game of Ur Historical Background "Between 1924 and 1934, a joint University of Pennsylvania Museum-British Museum expedition, led by Sir Leonard Woolley, excavated the Royal Cemetery complex in the Sumerian city of Ur. During the course of these excavations, several items identified by Woolley as "gaming boards" were unearthed."

Special exhibit at the Met, linked to a feature on the exhibit at Archaeology Magazine, "The Art of Foreign Influence." - From Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt in the south to Thrace, Anatolia, and the Caucasus in the north, and from regions as far west as mainland Greece all the way east to Iran, the great royal houses forged intense international relationships through the exchange of traded raw materials and goods as well as letters and diplomatic gifts.

The Exhibition catalog is for sale at the Met Gift Shop:
Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C. - Hardcover - Edited by Joan Aruz, with Kim Benzel and Jean Evans. Published in conjunction with the exhibition “Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, November 18, 2008–March 15, 2009.

There's a photo of a love Egyptian-style 20 squares game - with the long tail of 8 squares, along with the photo credit at the blog. Also linked to the Serpent Game Board story at Goddesschess, which is another prime example of a 20 squares game board in the style of the boards from the Royal Tombs of Ur, except the Shar-i Sokhtah board used intertwined serpents to created the playing "squares" rather than actual squares like the Ur boards did. See also: "The Serpent Gameboard of Iran: Much Ado About - Nothing New..."

Ed Note: Much supportive research leads us to assume that the interwined serpents and rosette imagery appearing on this Megiddo II game board of much later vintage contains evidence of a continuing tradition for the invention, modification, trademarking and standarization of popular ancient games.

From Pascal Romaine's website: (currently down)

fabric: ivoire couleur: blanc state: complet
dimensions: Epaisseur 2,6 cm
conservation: Palestinian Archeological Museum, Jerusalem: n°38.826
designs : tablier réversible (58 trous et 20 cases)

disposition of the grid: les bords du haut sont décorés avec des figures d’animaux et d’arbres sculptés. «game layouts incised».
accessories: aucun

publications: Loud, G. 1948 Megiddo II
Oriental Institute Publications 62 pl. 268: 6, Chicago

• A graffito version of the Royal Game of Ur, the “game of 20 squares

• "Scorpion-man" board game of 16 playing spaces excavated at Jiroft, Iran, and a second game board show here, excavated at Beth Shemesh (Stratem V), dating to the Middle Bronze Age, c. 2200 - 1570 BCE

•Twenty Squares (Royal Game of Ur) From the British Museum Website

• Daniel Thibault's explanation of the Egyptian version of twenty squares: Aseb, with diagrams:

• James Masters' overview of the Royal Game of Ur and Twenty Squares... Masters agrees with Thibault that the Egyptian version of twenty squares "Tau", "Tjaw" or "Robbers," is incorrectly named and that the Egyptians called the game "Aseb."

• From the Louvre - "The game of "Twenty Squares" was played at home or among friends, and was one of the Egyptians' favorite pastimes"

• Download a program to play twenty squares from P.S. Neeley

Like Senet, "Twenty Squares" changed in the late 2nd millennium BC; the very form and spirit of the game evolved, and it acquired a religious meaning.

In one of the three known representations of this game board, the following text is inscribed above the track: "[Game] of the combination of two Twenty Squares"… which would tend to prove that our game was simply known as "Twenty Squares."

ED Note: By the way, I find the history presented at this website of how twenty squares arrived in Egypt suspect, as it states that it didn't get there until around 1600 BCE, but I'm sure we have older examples of twenty squares game boards from Egypt??? I really find it hard to believe that it would have taken about 800 years for the game to arrive from Mesopotamia (Ur boards circa 2600 BCE) to Egypt via Cyprus in 1600 BCE!

At this website Andre Dollinger writes that Aseb dates to the Old Kingdom, although the oldest discovered game boards date to the 17th Dynasty.

Possibly related is the Knossos (Crete) game board:
(Evans, PM I, ðßí. V). Middle Minoan III - Late Minoan IA (18th-15th century B.C.). Herakleion Archaeological Museum.) Here is a link to information at the University of Waterloo Elliott Avedon Museum & Archive of Games, Robert S. Brumbaugh's 1975 article

Ed. Note: the Knossos game board (according to Stooping Wolf a/k/a Ulrich Schadler) was discovered with four pieces so it is assumed it is a game board). This board has 16 playing spaces - just like the "Scorpion Man" game board discovered at Jiroft. Coincidence?

February 1, 2009
Exploring the political art of chess, antiwar, the Beatles, John, Yoko, Ringo, Klaus - and everything!