The Extraordinary Origins of Chess: Irving Finkel & Sushma Jansari, The Portico Library, 2021

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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 .

5 Comments

  1. If the king had the moves of the queen it would be far harder to checkmate.

  2. How amazing video! Thank you so so much from the 13th of August 2024 !!! 😊❤

  3. 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" .

  4. I think the Harry Potter missed an opportunity to have Mr. Finkel have a cameo in the films!

  5. 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…

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