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28 November 2019

Oldest Chess Piece?

How did I know that The Last Yahoo (August 2019) really was the last? In Yahoo's heyday, stories like the following would have easily been featured in Yahoo News. Now I have to rely on Google News for this sort of thing, where Google News is more-and-more a rehash of Chess.com News.

'World's oldest chess piece'? I'm sure I've seen that headline in years past.

That middle story leads to:-

2019-11-27: Chess piece found in Jordan may be world's oldest (phys.org) • 'John Oleson with the University of Victoria has reported that a small object found in Jordan made of sandstone might be the oldest chess piece ever found.'

But don't start rewriting chess history yet. The story ends with:-

Taken together, the evidence suggests that the Rook is possibly the earliest evidence of such a chess piece design, and possibly the oldest example of any type of chess piece. More work is required to verify that the stone object is, indeed, a chess piece before it can be designated as such.

I think it's a huge stretch. Huge!

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