Chess and the silk road.
Traditional games including chess and its many variants constitute important elements of the cultures of different people living along the Silk Roads. The interactions and re-encounters that have been taking place for thousands of years along the Silk Roads provided considerable opportunities not only for the spread of traditional games throughout different regions but also for their enrichment at different levels. One theory is that an early game similar to chess called Chaturanga originated in Northern Indian Subcontinent during the Gupta period (~ 319 – 543 CE) and spread along the Silk Roads west to Persia. Whilst modern Chess is believed to have been derived from Chaturanga means ‘four divisions’ referring either to the divisions of the playing pieces into infantry, cavalry, elephantry and chariotry (pieces which in the modern game became the pawn, knight, bishop and rook), or to the fact that the game was played by four players. Chatrang, and later Shatranj, was the name given t...