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PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SON,

LONDON GAZETTE OFFICE, ST. MARTIN'S LANE;

AND

ORCHARD STREET, WESTMINSTER.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME XIII.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

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THE ROYAL

OF

ASIATIC SOCIETY.

ART. I.-On the Persian Game of Chess.
By N. BLAND, ESQ., M.R.A. S.

[Read June 19th, 1847.]

WHATEVER difference of opinion may exist as to the introduction of Chess into Europe, its Asiatic origin is undoubted, although the question of its birth-place is still open to discussion, and will be adverted to in this essay. Its more immediate design, however, is to illustrate the principles and practice of the game itself from such Oriental sources as have hitherto escaped observation, and, especially, to introduce to particular notice a variety of Chess which may, on fair grounds, be considered more ancient than that which is now generally played, and lead to a theory which, if it should be established, would materially affect our present opinions on its history.

In the life of Timur by Ibn Arabshah', that conqueror, whose love of chess forms one of numerous examples among the great men of all nations, is stated to have played, in preference, at a more complicated game, on a larger board, and with several additional pieces.

The learned Dr. Hyde, in his valuable Dissertation on Eastern Games, has limited his researches, or, rather, been restricted in them by the nature of his materials, to the modern Chess, and has no further illustrated the peculiar game of Timur than by a philological

1

كتاب عجايب المقدور في اخبار تيمور تالیف احمد بن عربشاه

Edited by Manger, "Ahmedis Arabsiada Vitæ et Rerum Gestarum Timuri, qui vulgo Tamerlanes dicitur, Historia. Leov. 1772, 4to;" and also by Golius, 1736.

2 Syntagma Dissertationum, &c. Oxon, MDCCLXVII., containing "De Ludis Orientalibus, Libri duo." The first part is "Mandragorias, seu Historia Shahi ludii, Horis successivis olim congessit Thomas Hyde, S.T.P."

VOL. XIII.

B

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