The Extraordinary Origins of Chess: Irving Finkel & Sushma Jansari, The Portico Library, 2021
Вставка
- Опубліковано 6 жов 2024
- If you enjoy this video, please donate at www.theportico.... The Portico Library is a charity, free to visit for the public six days a week, with arts, heritage, literacy and learning activities throughout the year.
During their 2021 exhibition 'Fun & Games: playtime, past and present', The Portico Library hosted this online event on the Indian, Persian and Arab roots of the world's most famous game of strategy, chess. This was a pay-what-you-can event in association with MACFEST Festival of Muslim Arts & Culture supporting The Portico Library's free public arts and education programmes.
Dr Sushma Jansari is the Tabor Foundation Curator: South Asia, at the British Museum. She was instrumental in the redevelopment of the British Museum’s Sir Joseph Hotung Gallery of China and South Asia which opened in 2017 and is currently lead curator in the team developing the Manchester Museum South Asia Gallery in partnership with the British Museum (opening 2022). Sushma is also writing a book for UCL Press titled 'Chandragupta Maurya: the creation of a national hero in India'.
Irving Finkel is a Senior Curator in the Middle East Department at the British Museum, where he is in charge of the cuneiform tablet collection. He is also a specialist in the history of ancient board games and edited 'Board Games in Perspective'. He deciphered the rules for the Royal Game of Ur, the national board game of Ancient Mesopotamia.
'Opening Moves: The Extraordinary Origins of Chess' was hosted by The Portico Library's Exhibitions and Programmes Curator James Moss.
You can enjoy the online version of the full 'Fun & Games' exhibition at www.theportico....
I hope someone is filming Dr Finkel every day. What a treasure he is to the human race!
I am surprised Finkel does not have 5x the amount of shared content online. The world needs way more Finkel.
He’s fantastic
🎉9
“When the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.”-Cortana
Irving Finkel never ceases to amaze, fascinate, educate and entertain me. What a scholar. It is very unusual to have someone who is so well read in so many different fields - and so passionate about all of them. He should really have a regular show, kind of as the (ancient) history teacher of the world.
Undoubtedly. I wish I could have gone to that museum and have a chat with him.
But not on history channel. For obvious reasons.
In Turkish chess, bishop still called elephant(fil); knight is horse(at), rook is castle(kale), queen is vizier(vezir) and king is shah(şah). Pawn is called "piyon" which comes from French word "pion" and it means "infantry/foot soldier" in French. Also "chess" called "satranç" which comes from Persian word "şaṭranc" which comes from Indian word "chaturanga" .
I lived in Korea back in the 1970s where I learned to play janggi, the Korean descendent of Chaturanga, the Indian ancestor of chess. I liked the way guys would play it in the street, squatting down with the game between them, the board made from any old piece of plywood with lines drawn on it and the playing pieces were made from disks cut out of an old broom handle. And they never played it slowly, contemplating every move. They played like maniacs
Best way to play. 😃
wonderful
He's a gem he really is
@Private Person DBAD
We always learn loads when Irving gives a talk. He's an absolute goldmine.
Thanks for watching Amanita. We're glad that you enjoyed Irving and Sushma's event. Please tell your friends, and donate if you can at www.theportico.org.uk/donate.
How amazing video! Thank you so so much from the 13th of August 2024 !!! 😊❤
Dr Finkle is the best!
Elephants, chariots, horses, you say. I played chess against an Indian opponent a couple of summers ago on a giant chess set, and he called the rooks cannons, which I thought was fantastic, because they do fire in a straight line until they hit something. I think he did call the Knights elephants, and I don't remember what he called the bishops.
That's fascinating. In Russian, bishops are called elephants, and rooks are longships.
Chinese chess uses cannon, and elephants, with the field divided by a river!
YAY! Irving Finkel! Never can get enough of him.
Do enjoy your talks Irving, you sure squired a massive amount of information, love the story telling not many people have gift to make things enjoyable at the same time learning..
How wonderful. Finally someone talks about the history of chess and it’s many permutations. And that someone is Dr Finkel. Thank you so much.
Irving Finkel
The visage of Irving Finkle revs up my desire to learn yet humbles my present knowledge of whatever subject he speaks. Listen and learn. And laugh!
When Anand was champion, there was a huge upswing in people stopping to play cricket and play chess for five minutes instead.
Very accurate indeed
This was a delight. Thank you.
You're welcome Hinzmana. Great to hear that you enjoyed the event. You can support our non-profit talks and activities at www.theportico.org.uk/donate and see the Fun & Games exhibition online at www.theportico.org.uk/fun-and-games
Dr. Finkel's presentations are always fascinating and entertaining.
I have been married to a wonderful lady for 36 years now. It very nearly never happened because we once, foolishly, played a game of Monopoly.
9:25
couldn't resist, and calculated a rough estimation on that:
rice grain: ~ 2mm x 5 mm.
British Islands: ~ 250k km sq
foot = 0.3048 m
br. islands area * 7 feet / rice grain vol. : ~ 27 * 10^9 grains of rice
the number of rice grains mentioned is (2^65) - 1
~ 3.7 * 10 ^ 19
which is over a billion times more...
You welcome.
There is only 1 grain in the first square so the 64th square will have 2^63 = 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 or 9.2 x 10^18. As we are doubling up on each square the entire board would require (2^64) − 1 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 or 18.4 x 10^18 so still well over 7 ft as you suggest..
Fun fact, in spanish the elephant is still called the "Alfil" :D
True. It has a bishop shape,but the name in spanish its alfil, and not obispo(bishop). Curious
There is a wonderful collection of chess pieces at Maryhill Museum of Art in the Columbia Gorge, Washington State, USA
Sam Hill had a bastard son named Sam Hill who had a son named Sam Hill who is a good friend of mine. I've been to Maryhill and saw a photo on the wall of my friend's father (the bastard son). I also went on a Black Sea cruise with my friend Sam and his mother; we visited an arboretum that used to be a palace of the Queen of Romania, who was close to the elder Sam Hill and had urged him to turn Maryhill into a museum.
This was fun. Thanks for all of the history, insights and good humour.
Thanks Christopher. We're glad that you liked the talk. Please spread the word and check out our other activities, exhibitions, and events at www.theportico.org.uk
The ebony and ivory material change causing sets to become black and white makes sense. Possibly because those were also the materials used for pianos and so maybe were available for carving.
Stone chess pieces were more common in early European history…
This is a treat! Thank you. And also, extremely fun to hear a shout-out for Agadmator. For anyone interested in chess (presumably anyone watching this already knows this, but still), he's a great source of fun analysis of historical and modern games.
This is true. Agadmator is an excellent source. Of course, there are also things called books, several of them, I have heard, are quite good. Although I have never read one myself. It is interesting that scholarship on chess has not gone much beyond Murray (1913), even today.
Great to hear that you enjoyed our talk Johan. Thanks for watching. Please spread the word, and you can donate something at www.theportico.org.uk/donate if you'd like to help us produce more events and activities.
My friends company is digitizing the entirety of the OED, unbelievably massive text and fascinating
I wonder if the black/white pieces became popular because of a manufacturing factor. Did piano manufacturing companies start a sideline turning ebony and ivory?
Fantastic interview!
This is fantastic, I've been looking for a video just like this for months. THANK YOU. Excellent interview, excellent questions, excellent answers, excellent illustrations. Many thanks.
Wow, great job, can't believe how fun this conversation was., fascinating...
When I was a boy (I am a few years older than Dr. Finkel) I could never win, or even compete with, my elder brother at chess--so I gave it up as a lost cause. There was a time when I had someone with whom to play Go--the East Asian board game--and that was very interesting, but after several years we went our different ways.
Good evening. Last question... "What would I like to change?"
I would like when the pawn reaches the opponents side that your opponent promotes you. Scripture says let others promote you in the gate.... let others speak of you not you yourself.
Well done 👏
The tale of innumerable grains on a chess board is familiar to virtually everyone in Russia. Chess used to be big here, and our math teachers and pop-science writers used this story to illustrate very large numbers. (by the way, chess are called shahmaty in Russian, from the Persian "Shah Mat", the King's dead, as mentioned here.)
Was still huge when i was in russia 18 years ago.. Backgammon too. Cards as well.. Id say at leats then russians were the worlds biggest cards and chess players
I wonder if queens were given such movement because women traveled from one kingdom to another in order to become queen. She brought new alliances and culture to the court while having influence. Kings were limited in scope to their own realm. Of course, Finkel's explanation of the moves being simply game related is most likely the reason.
The variant where the Queen moves as far as she likes in any direction (which has since become key to the modern game) was often called 'the Mad Queen', which is a less kind interpretation.
Wonderful, And Fun! Thank you.
Irving ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Damn, i like this guy. Dude has awesome charisma. I really enjoyed this. Thank you
This is beautiful - thank you so much to you both. The photograph of the early Persian Chess pieces possibly from Nishapur, Iran ought to remind people of the world famous multi-million selling poem - the Mystical Masterpiece... the Ruba'iya't of Omar Khayya'm as translated by Edward FitzGerald of Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK. Do see the Omar Khayyam Theatre Company - wide screen.
Irving Finkel is such a source of knowledge and understanding.
Wonderful discussion
Thank you
Great to hear that you enjoyed it Boden. If you'd like to see more from the Library, please visit www.theportico.org.uk
What I love about the chess set from Neishapur, Iran, is that it leaves more to the imagination. I like the abstract pieces.
the fact that irving has watched agadmator blows my socks off
'And it is as of this point that we have a completely new game'
its so nice ot see a master time traveling wizard pretend to be a british intelectual, all the cleaver little ways he gaslights us away from understanding his secret like 'we dont have a lot ov archelogical research but ~i~ think...'
i see through you, your secret is safe with me but take me with you when you go back please... i have nothing else to learn here.
Alternate versions of chess in my youth were 1. Quick Take (winner is the player who gives away all their pieces), 2. Rifles (taking a piece does not involve moving the taking piece), and 3. Double chess (two moves each -first cannot be a check-).
Vietnamese chess, a real thing, is very interesting. I bought a Vietnamese chess set at a Vietnamese market in Dallas in the early 1980's and played Vietnamese chess with my Vietnamese immigrant colleagues.
there is something very beautiful about that 12 century chess(?) set.
you can almost see the love/passion it's creator had for the game, whatever game it may have been.
I think the Harry Potter missed an opportunity to have Mr. Finkel have a cameo in the films!
I once saw a photo in a book of a set of chess pieces made of bread by a prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp, so that he could play chess with another prisoner.
Please do a similar Irving Finkel presentation on the 'Extraordinary Origins of Backgammon' including the much lesser known history in China where it was called 'Shuanglu Qi' which translates to 'Double Land' or in another interpretation as 'Double Sixes' which theoretically would be Shuang Liu'. From what I've discovered from the scant English language materials on the subject in China, it was very popular in China for 1,500-2,000 years, but has now become completely forgotten in present-day Chinese culture. Chinese Chess, Mah Jiang, and Go being the most popular games in China these days. I'd just love to re-introduce the wonderful game of Shuanglu Qi (Backgammon, Nard, Shesh Besh,Tabula, Takhteh, Tavli, Tavla, Ban-Sugoroku, Ssang-ryuk etc.) to modern Chinese culture.
Hi Steve. Thanks for your suggestion. That's a great idea. We'll talk to Irving about it. In the meantime, have a look at the Library's other talks, activities, and exhibitions at www.theportico.org.uk and please donate if you can to help us create more events and run our charitable programmes.
@@theporticolibrary1295 Wow! I posted that comment 9 months ago. It took you long enough to reply. Lol! Please do look into the history 'Shuanglu Qi', how and when it was introduced into China, and why it disappeared. I found one reference that it was banned during the Qing Dynasty, but I'm not certain of this. I'd be interested if you can give me any leads, even if they're in Chinese, I maybe able to use some translation software to get the gist of it. Thanks.
In case you're interested, if you were to double the number of grains of rice on each successive square of a chessboard, starting with 1 grain on the first square, (according to the anecdote by the wonderful Mr Finkel at around 9:02), by the time you get to the 64th square you would be the proud owner of 9,223,372,036,854,780,000 grains of rice...
Enough to feed Asia for a day ;)
Positive integer powers of 2 always end in a 2, 4, 6 or 8 so that should have been the first clue you were wrong. If you had written 9.223 372 036 854 78 × 10^18 or said about you would have been fine but as you specified 19 digits of precision not 15 and got the last 5 wrong your value is wrong. The correct value is 9 223 372 036 854 775 808
@@igrim4777 curse you Microsoft Excel...
"What change would you make?" Un-Castling, which would allow you to reverse a castling move back to their original positions.
Great !
Wait wait.. you can't just randomly say that you need bananas if you are to have a Giraffe piece and not comment further!!
Donkeys for knights. This was reality.
Rollo Ganger, who founded the Norman nation, was known as the ganger because his feet touched the ground on his horse. Shetland and Norse horses were quite small.
R
If you want to see passion in a board game, watch a bunch of Royal Navy Sailors playing Uckers (a grown up form of Ludo). Careers have depended (or ended) on the outcome!
I would agree with Mr. Finkel is correct that knight can jump. I would also imagine that the speed and ability with which Calvary can out flank it’s enemies would explain the change in direction of the piece.
The rook is the archer who shoots straight, the Bishop is shifty and goes diagonaly. The Knight to jump diagonaly to break the sheild-wall
ah yes, queens gambit.👌 an excellent story about a young alien that gets adopted by jimmy page
I’ve always felt that the player is actually the king piece, he had to survive, would never be on the battlefield in actual battle, it’s his mind that was used.
💘💘💘. 💞. 😃
Today will Now Be Brilliant.
Thank You. 😃
Been playing since I was 2. 👉
Isince ( 1973 )
Your soul is basically unstoppable
26:00 Irving Finkel's roundabout way of saying "Damn Anya Taylor-Joy is so hot" lol
The Harry Potter story made me recall that wonderful scene in the Thomas Crown affair, where the lead actress exotically caresses the smooth dome head of her bishop, whilst emphasising her ploy with her foot under the table.
6:00 ... too bloody for a boardgame! Edgar Rice Burroughs for his book The Chessmen of Mars adapted chess into the game of Jetan which is described as being very popular (in fact Martian soldiers carry with them small versions of the game to while away the hours between conflicts). The "Chessmen" had an arena sized board with actual people as pieces. When a "piece" moved into an opponent's square they would fight to the death for to determine who would occupy the square.
Love Finkel.
we have a Korean set -- game has 2 Queens, and different movies, an King is limeted to a 9x9 area...
Is it true that everything came from India? Fun having friends from Iran and India and one of them discovers Aesop's Fables or Plato on your bookshelf. Listen to the argument -
"This was stolen from Persia"
"And where did Persia get it? From India!"
OMG on and on hahaha. Plumbing, agriculture, domesticated dogs hahaha.
Study of games is an important anthropology.
I believe the limited move of the king piece reflects the actual limits of a ruler in a court society. Limited by creed and law, by politics, by the need to try to cover all bases and keep all the powerful nobles on side, a monarch is nearly always handicapped and rarely absolute (some French monarchs excepted). Rank may have privileges but is also has shackles.
I don't think that chess started as an instructional tool for battle. That's because in chess, both sides are equal, you start in the same place, you take turns and the goal the capture of the king. And that's nothing LIKE a battle. I think it wa a way for soldiers to relax. A way to play at battle in a very low-stakes manner.
Also, if you think of a knight as an L-shape move, of course it makes no sense. But if you look at it another way, it's one step orthoginally and one step diagianlly. That's equivalent to the L-shape, but crucially, it's a mix of bishop and rook and the knight starts right between them.
This is a great video I hope my rambling doesn't suggest that I think otherwise.
The theory isn't that chess represents the battlefield, it's that the game which was the ancestor of chess, but very different, was meant to represent the battlefield
Gandalf the Grey. ?
He certainly is an elderly wizard .
Every time I read the comments under a Dr. Finkle video I feel like half the people didn't even watch the whole thing, maybe even none of it and just read the title. There are so many interesting things to point out and ask about yet so many people just show ignorance about things which are explained later in the video
Simply amazing
Thanks for watching Ed. If you'd like to see the exhibition, it's online at www.theportico.org.uk/fun-and-games
If you look at the picture closely in the Queens Gambit, some of the pieces are replaced with little liqueur sample bottles, guess if captured you get to drink it down.. more staggering moves ahead in the game of chess.
Chess for me, is the temporary psychological domination of one over another.
The advantage being that the domination being only temporary.
The representation of the pieces for best effect, need to be recognised not from looking but from scanning.
The difference between listening and hearing if you like.
In Xiangqi we have two pieces that move, attack like the rook and it is called the chariot piece.
Concerning, the origin of the Knight move, one theory that I have read is that a very early version of the game had a 5x5 board. Place a Rook and a Bishopv(which in early forms of chess only moved in a checker-like diagonal hopping move), and these two pieces cover all the squares of the 5x5 board Except for the oblique 8 oblique squares. The knight move was (in this theory) invented to cover these 8 squares and no others.
There's a 15th century painting of death playing chess against a man in Täby church in Sweden. Apparently the inspiration for the similar scene in Bergman's "The seventh seal".
I love that people developed themselves while essential personnel just worked around the clock, I feel no different than prior to covd19, actually I do feel a bit more poor. 😭😭
"The Queen's Gambit is absolutely brilliant!"
you might want to mind the fact that it's the story of a kid addicted to sleeping pills, who throws her life out the window to pursue a first prize in competitive chess tournaments.
it's not a story of self-improvement or hope.... it's a story of addiction and self-destruction that just happens to end on a high note by being placed in an environment of disproportionately high rewards to the already high risk.
you take that story and use it as a guiding example to drive the life of a person, and chances are, they gonna end up dead.
just because Beth succeeded doing that, doesn't mean anyone else will, at the same thing, or in the same way.
*sigh* "The Queen's Gambit follows the life of an orphan chess prodigy, Elizabeth Harmon, during her quest to become an elite chess player while struggling with emotional problems, drugs and alcohol dependency."
@@marthadunkley6758 yes, exactly. My problem is not with the people who see the story as a story, my problem is with the people who *identify* with characters they see on screen.
"Oh, this girl is a total wreck! And she succeeds! How inspiring! I'm gonna be a total wreck too!"
It is very funny that it started with a chess items from Persia and tried to tell stories about invention in India ( without any evidence) and make stories about playing chess in England. Don't you think the main part of it which is Persian chess is missing?😅😅
Horse move is a cavalry flank
What's rook move then? 😂
@@cholulahotsauce6166 a chariot zooming through the battlefield ;)
If the king had the moves of the queen it would be far harder to checkmate.
Any relation to Ray? THE LACES WERE IN!!
My grandfather got me a time/life civil war pewter set, still have all the pieces. Not surprisingly the SOUTH ALWAYS LOSES as they will never rise ever
26:00 The King is the most important piece. A king acts through his agents; he does not do everything in his realm or on his battlefied personally - what point then of an army? I don't agree with Dr Finkle's description of the tired shy king here. Even on the battlefield the king has of course an honour guard with him.
The queen's upgrade however has many more influences that I would assume some polite chap like Dr Finkle wouldn't dare say directly to a woman, especially such a friendly one. The new rule or version was also known as the "Mad Queen's Chess" which is the version we mainly play today. The "mad queen" is a hysterical woman, or in a friendlier interpretation projecting the reach of her own games of intrigue. The meanest interpretation would be that in order to get the women interested in the game, one would appeal to their narcissism and make the piece representing them some all powerful Mary Sue who could do everything compared to everyone else. A cruel power fantasy so to say. Something we see in today's badly written media quite a lot, and hopefully dying down soon again. - The mentioned TV show "The Queen's Gambit" is similarly such a power fantasy appealing to just that, for there is no historical precedent for what happens in the show. It is a mere fantasy of a "strong women" outdoing all the men in what they're great at.
Narcissism is of course not a solely female thing, but this is an expression of it. As Dr Finkle said himself, I would have enjoyed more women to play with as well, but alas barely any are interested in such games. Be it chess, shogi, go or the like. More colourful and less abstract boardgames, like Archipelago, or with even more social aspects in the game's narrative changes that a bit.
About the red vs black pieces: In Alice in Wonderland (or behind the mirrrors?) there is the Red Queen; could it be that Lewis Caroll took his inspiration from the Lewis chess set?
I believe the less figurative chess pieces where designed by the owner to confuse his opponent !
Do we know how the Lewis chesmen were dyed?
About the Lewis ponnies: war horses weren´t necessarily that big in those days. I´m under the impressinon that the heavy knight in armour was just evolving in that time. The carver migth have been more familiar with smaller breeds (like Icelandic horses of palfreys) or he might have wanted to ridicule the Viking horse breeds. I´m more into Byzantine icongography, and there you find a lot warrior saints with rather small horses.
I must tell you about a chess set my son got from a lady at church when he first gor interested in the game. They do not look fancy at all, normal wooden pieces from Soviet Union. The dramatic detail is they were given to the lady by a man who had them with him when he was sent to Gulag...
💪😉
White pieces were ivory; green pieces probably originated as jade.
couldn't it be that bishops were totally unexceptable in protestant Germany and the Netherlands and consequently were replaced by 'Läufer' and 'lopers'?
Cheers, Willem (Belgium)
I would stop the Queen being able to move so many squares, and knights would be able to take pieces they jump over. There are variants of chess, like CrazyHouse, where you convert and place pieces you've taken.
ah yes... the infamous "WOLOLO!"
it was more than a game he sold
Hilarious to find out that a national scholar watches chess UA-cam videos lol
I am a bit surprised about the assumption here, that Western chess is the culmination of chess. The final one and only result of a long evolution of substeps leading to this glorious summit. I know of at least 3 other forms of chess, one of which is played by more people than Western chess.
They can be found in East Asia. All of them are viable and stable forms of the game, with professionalism and publicity in the media in various ways. The most played form of chess is played in China: JiangJi, the elephant chess. Then there is the Korean variation on the same board, but the pieces go a bit differently. But for me at the summit of chess evolution is shogi, Japanese chess played on a 9x9 board. Positional judgement is much more important than the balance of the pieces compared to Western chess. Handicaps can be applied. Draws are very rare. It is just a better game.
I would have liked this video to treat these other forms of chess as serious other forms of principally the same game.
That comment about changing chess to have a "speedy" version was stunningly ignorant. There already is such chess, called blitz, and it is very popular among chess players, with tournaments and ratings.
Exploding chess!
I like prefer playing *divorce chess.*
I agree that Dr. Irving Finkel is an amazing (and amusing) source of knowledge, but I have to take issue with his statement that his white and red chess set was new in modern times and that no one has seen white and red pieces before: in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass”, Alice is definitely encountering the Red Queen and King, and the rest of the red pieces.
The RED queen in wonderland is the Queen of Hearts, from the 52 piece deck of cards. Why the cards are black and red? That might arise from the same history of red ink, because the roman soldiers had red tunics for the reason of red paint being potent, visible and long lasting after drying.
@@juhonieminen4219 I think you may be mixing up "Alice in Wonderland" which indeed takes playing cards as a theme, and Lewis Carroll's other novel "Through the Looking-Glass" which is based on a chess problem with a chess set of white and RED pieces. I was referring to the latter.
I don't own a copy of The Looking Glass book, but I have a chess set with red and green pieces. It is mainly a question of material choice, but maybe Lewis Carroll had a historical point to make? Or maybe he too had a randon set with red pieces and it was based on real life experience?
@@juhonieminen4219 The Red Queen and the Queen of Hearts are different characters.
"I have to take issue with his statement that his white and red chess set was new in modern times and that no one has seen white and red pieces before"
He never said that.