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All rights reserved

What's new ?
Why, chess, of course!
- a very old game - with no clear beginning ... and no end in sight!
Spiral into the never-ending, ever-changing quest for the life and times of chess ...

 


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2007-2005 - What's New?
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Random Roundup
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Updated items: March 23, 2008

Chessays
The Symbolism of Chess
by Titus Burckhardt
" In this essay, Titus Burckhardt ties the game of chess (which originated in India and subsequently underwent minor modifications during its stay in the West) back to a larger, sacred reality. He covers an almost incredible amount of information (the caste system, astrology, and World Cycles) in a short period of time."

Updated items: March 16, 2008

Chessays
"The Doctor's Game - A New Light on the History of Ancient Board Games" (see also PDF section the Chessay's Table of Contents ) "Excavations betweeen 1987 and 2003 on the fringes of the site of Camulodunum revealed an extraordinary funerary site with a Middle Iron Age antecedent." Dr. Ulrich Schadler's specialist report provides us with a high quality analysis of these discoveries from an esteemed authority on Roman era board games. Muchos gracias Ulrich!

Updated items: January 20, 2008

Chesstories
Check Republics by Sally Feldman - With the kind permission of Paul Sims, this article is reproduced from New Humanist, a London-based magazine promoting reason,debate and free thought since 1885. Visit their website to browse an extensive archive dating back to1999, where you can also request a free trial copy

The Real Honest to Goddess Truth about Football By Alpheta Patton (with Donus Felinicus) Super Bowl Sunday is just around the corner. Goddesschess (and the game of the goal posts) is pleased to present the real meaning behind the game and what this means to chess. Truthiness in action! Grab a beer, hang onto your helmets, sit back and prepare to be infotained! Forward en Passant! Go Ra!

Updated items: December 7, 2007

Chessays
Dr. Ricardo Calvo, M.C Romeo, et al
(MSWord doc - 1.7 Mb)

Instant Download :: This partially edited draft includes a collection of translated essays extracted mostly from Dr. Ricardo Calvo's Spanish publication - "Lucena: an Escape into Chess". Our MSword entry incorporates and improves upon the previously appearing segment of goddesschess' projected two part series - bugun earlier in html as - Love, Chess and Literature in Lucena - an Unnoticed Precedent of "La Celestina"- Part I.

Updated items: November 4, 2007

Chessays

Three Games - Three Epochs M.C. Romeo's recent 2007 IGK presentation investigates a succession of events and a common theme running through medieval literature. (716 kb In pdf format)


Updated items: October 7, 2007

Alpheta's Literary Agora

Schacchia Ludus
by Marcus Hieronymus Vida, Bishop of Alba

Updated items: September 2, 2007

Chessays
A new paradigm for an "Origins of Chess" theory
by John Ayer
- This essay argues that the generally accepted scheme for the derivation of the current and disused forms of chess from the original Indian proto-chess is mistaken:

Updated items: August 26, 2007

Chessquest
The Goddesschess Summer 2007 Celebration!
Follow our fearless foursome as we explore and navigate the local chessboards of Milwaukee, Chicago and environs by land, sea and air. Photoworks, butterflies and fireworks help cap our 8th Anniversary installment.

Updated items: July 1, 2007

Chessays
Love, Chess and Literature in Lucena - an Unnoticed Precedent of "La Celestina"- Part I further explorations in to the character and historical background of Lucena by Dr. Ricardo Calvo. (Special thanks to Carmen Romeo, who kindly forwarded Goddesschess this remarkable essay.)

Chessquest
Butrint in Vivisection Part II
by Donald McLean - In which the play of pharoahs recaptures Butrint's historical conscience while netting a few cscharlatans in the process. Measure for measure, our man Butrint has been disgracefully wronged! Long live the king!

Updated items: June 17,2007

Chessays
Chessmen and Chess By Charles K. Wilkinson
We present here (with our notes) the text of Charles K. Wilkinson's article about the chess pieces excavated at Nishapur in 1939.

Updated items: June 3, 2007

Alpheta's Literary Agora
Through a Glass Darkly by Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. - As it turns out, the famous American general had a lesser known poetic side...


"Through the travail of the ages,
Midst the pomp and toil of war,
Have I fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star."...

Updated items: May27, 2007

Chess Goddesses
Ageless wonder! Alina Markowski delved into chess in the 1950s, at a time when women in the sport were uncommon. By Jan Newton - May 27, 2007

Updated items: April 29, 2007

New Godesschess Blog!
Yes darlings! Once again Goddesschess headlines the news with the announcement of our very own Google Blogspot. Come and experience!

Updated items: April 17, 2007

Chesstories
"Chess", the Musical
- A Story About a High-Stakes Game... and Chess, Too - (in two parts) By Jan Newton - April 16, 2007

Alpheta's Literary Agora
If I Were a Chess Master - by Michael Frey (Thanks for the poem Michael!)
If I Were King - song lyrics from the Wizard of Oz

Updated items: April 1, 2007

No foolin'! "An Ancient Game Computers Can't Master" Jan Newton's March 31, 2007 report on "Go" strikes a blow for humanity!

Updated items: March 20, 2007

Chesstories
The Legend of Dalukah Mas''odi's Dalukah appears to be a composite character. Here we find her in A. E. Wallis Budge's recapitulation, weaving her magic in a way that reminds us a great deal of grande alcedrix. As with almost everything Egyptian, the imagery is forcefully suggestive and profound.

Updated items: March 17, 2007

Chessquest
New discovery or just the same old song? Between March 9 -12, 2007, a news story was picked up by several chess bloggers on the internet. The gist: A research team claims to have moved a step closer to proving that chess originated around the northern Indian city of Kanauj in the 5th century. Even so, we have some "questions" we would like to see resolved...

Updated items: March 5, 2007

Gender and Chess
The Experts Say - It's Just A Numbers Game by Jan Newton March, 2007 - On February 3, 2007 my friend and fellow Chess Femme News Correspondent, Wayne Mendryk, who reports from northwest Canada, sent me an interesting item he'd come across while he was compiling a news report for Chess Femme News.  He found the report at Chessbase, one of the premier chess news websites.  Here is Wayne's report:

Updated items: February 28, 2007

International Chessoid
Chessoid goes Hollywood! Donus Felinicus puts a claw into Hollywood Squares and and does what cats are wont do to with tablecloths. This is Alice's old trick.. Find out why nothing in Hollywood, or chess, is what it appears to be.
Queen Wins Oscar! A cameo appearance on these very Chessoid pages by our Hollywood savvy Vegas Showgirls! It takes a Showgirl to know one!

Updated items: February 16, 2007

Dilaram Revisited by Jan Newton
An UPDATE of previous Dilaram research into a timeless chess story and the problems people encounter when falling in love with chess... and each other!

CHESSTIQUE: An all new look from the four corners of our upscaled merchandising adventure to you... Check out our brand new Goddesschess storefront PLUS - Georgia's Custom Games - Pawn Promotions - Chess Showgirls Collection

Chess Femme News The Aeroflot Open, one of the strongest Swiss chess tournaments of the year, begins Wednesday in Moscow. The tournament director has posted the first round pairings at the official tournament website...

Updated items: January 31, 2007

Aishwarya Rai and Chess - Six Degrees of Separation by Jan Newton
January 27, 2007 - Bollywood does chess on the big screen!!

Updated items: January 22, 2007Great Snakes! The Serpent Gameboard of Iran" Much ado about - nothing? UPDATED: January, 2007 - Additions to Jan Newton's research of November, 2005.

Updated items: January 17, 2007

Chessquest
The Jiroft Game Boards
An UPDATE of Jan Newton's original essay, first launched on November, 2005. On February 6, 2005, an article appeared in the online version of the "Persian Journal" announcing fabulous archaeological finds in Iran... How fabulous? Check out those birds!

When is a bird not a bird? Another UPDATE!! This time of Don McLean's introduction to the article which originally appeared on November, 2005. In the mystic's world and the virtual world of board games, folkloric legends are often more truthful than strange. Archaeological fragments and the metaphysical collide head on in this Mandeaen exploration of the Simurgh.

Updated items: January 2, 2007 Goddesschess' Seventh Anniversary Celebration! Like Old Man River, we just keep rolling along... this time to spectacular Chicago and the Field Museum. Jan Newton reports on Tlingit North American "chess" and other native games while sharing the discoveries of our August, 2006 get together.

2006

Updated items: October 24, 2006

Alpheta's Literary Agora - Book Review
The Immortal Game, Two book reviews - by Phil Hanrahan and
Katie Hafner of - DAVID SHENK'S "A History of Chess (or How 32 Carved Pieces on a Board Illuminated Our Understanding of War, Art, Science, and the Human Brain),"

Updated items: September 24, 2006

Alpheta's Literary Agora
A Lady of the Game
by Richard Badham Coxe Jr (2006)

Chessquest
Origin of chess and its cosmological roots by Andreas Bunkahle (06 feb 06) - Andreas takes us on a brief journey through the cosmological archetypes of XiangQi, Chaturanja, Chess and the I-Ching. An interesting extrapolation produces a novel form of the old Chinese game and shows great promise for future comparisons of this type. Reprinted with permission Sept. 21, 2006. Thanks for the submission Andreas!

Art and Artifact
Scroll to the bottom of the thumbnail gallery for quick navigation to a number of new pictures. Tlingit chess, cribbage boards of North American Indian provenance, Salvador Dali, a city square and beer are presently being served.

Updated items: August 15, 2006

Chessays
Chess, Oedipus, and the Mater Dolorosa by Norman Reider (August 15. 2006) "The psycho-analytic study of play and games has been particularly rewarding, but no game is so full of possibilities for such study as that of chess."


Updated items: August 8, 2006

Links
http://gamesbooks.net/related_links.jsp A-hoy! Book sales spotted on the horizon! Robert Graham has assembled a nice page of reading materials that may interest gamesters and history buffs of many different persuasions. "There is no frigate like a book..."

Culture et curiosites de l'echiquier Some very interesting material included here. Although it is a French web site, it includes ample mention of hard to come by "apocryphal" views on the origins of chess. We discount nothing and embrace everything. Were it not for "myths", Troy might never have been discovered.

Updated items: August 7, 2006

Chessays
Alfonso X and Gambling in Chess November 27, 2005 - (updated as PDF August 7. 2006) A PDF integration of the html version with updated bibliographical content.

Alpheta's Literary Agora
Out da box
Printed with permission from Waterlotus (2006) Hmmm. flowers that write poetry...?! Here's a choice bud from our good friend Waterlotus

Links
A newly updated Chessmayne awaits... Thanks, Raymond!

Updated items: June 29, 2006

Las Vegas Showgirls
Showgirls do POKER! Candi, Bambi join up with and a Las Vegas dealer to hit another home run. This time, the World Series of Poker is their diamond.

Updated items: June 28, 2006

Chess Femme News
Chess Femme News That's right! An EXCLUSIVE new section in our menu bar with regular updates on women's participation in major tournament events.

Updated items: June 26, 2006

Links

A newly updated Links Page awaits...

Updated items: June 10, 2006

Gender and Chess

The Tussle in Turin! June 10, 2006 By Jan Newton Here's an update on Arianne Caoili since the article first appeared in 2002. At that time, Caoili was contemplating moving from the Phillipines due to an alleged lack of financial and training support from the chess establishment there. However, there is more to the story.

Updated items: May 21, 2006

Chessays
The Introduction of Chess into Europe by M.C. Romeo May 21, 2006 (41 pages) As translated into English from an address given to the Merida Conference of March, 2006. It would be criminal to merely place this file in the PDF section of our site without lavishing praise upon the sheer beauty of its contents, both graphic and informational. It would also be an unforgivable oversight to abstain from calling the reader's attention to what great distinction it brings to author and researcher M.C. Romeo. Carmen, you are a treasure!

DATELINE: May 14, 2006 -

A little late for Mother's Day, but the name says it all! Chesstique is Goddesschess' new portal to the Internet's commercial high seas. Added product links and catalogue updates are expected in the coming weeks. To get the cart rolling, Chesstique proudly introduces items from Georgia Albert's "Showgirls' Collection" of seductive textile boards and shimmering pieces. Come and experience!

Updated items: May 4, 2006

Chessays

Supposition on Results of Man vs. Machine on Chess by Hong Fei Teng, Yan Zhang, Yi Shou Wang & Hong Xia Zhao. We wish to thank an able and cooperative team of Chinese researchers for their mathematical journey into "probability" aspects of chess and other games.

Updated items: April 24, 2006

Chessquest
Goddesschess' Sixth Anniversary Celebration!
Jan Newton reports on trips to New York and the Oriental Institute Museum in Chicago, September 23 - October 3, 2005.

Updated items: April 4, 2006

Chessquest

Butrint in Vivisection - To be or not to be? Introduction to a multistage examination of the unusual find from Butrint Albania.

Updated items: February 22, 2006

Archives

I.G.K. 2003 Berlin conference
Synopsis 2003
I.G.K. 2005 Berlin conference
Synopsis 2005

Who We Are
An update of the never ending update! What is chess? Who is chess? Are we chess? Why chess? When is chess? Which chess?

Updated items: February 14, 2006

Las Vegas Showgirls

Multitudes of intimacies shared and bared - decorum breached as cheeky, chesty Showgirls "Ask the Queen"!

Links
A few new and updated entries you may wish to explore...

Updated items: February 6, 2006

Las Vegas Showgirls

4-3-2 Goddess! The Showgirls take off on a spellbinding tango through numerological and historical time-space!
Their Godel Chess - Global Chess trilogy has also been recently updated.
Come and experience!!

Alpheta's Literary Agora
Chess an original poem by Elizabeth L. Scott - as submitted by our friend, Brian Wall

Updated items: January 12, 2006

Art and Artifact

A new thumbnail format and a few additions to our gallery add fun and functionality to this expanding segment of goddesschess.

Chessays
Some new additions to the Joseph Needham page make the man and his work a little less mysterious to our viewers.



 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

 

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