The four players would form pairs of two, with each player having a partner. The rules of the game were partially derived from shatranj and other historical forms of chess the queen is played like an alfil, with a two square diagonal leaping move. The chess board itself was also varicolored, and divided into four sub-boards in which each of one of the four elemental colors predominated. The main identifications of the pieces were: The four sets of pieces were variously colored, and identified with Egyptian deities or "god-forms". The game was four-handed because each set of pieces corresponded to one of the four classical elements and their several watchtowers, and the game was used for divination as well as competition. MacGregor Mathers, who put its rules into final form.
Nothing ever evolves to simplicity.Things evolve to reach an apex not a mutation or variants of. This game board looks to have been created as a preparation for a future battle between two thrones divided by a river. To better explain why, I will not focus much on the Chinese game (Xiangqi) because it is a totally different battle field than that of Chess, This piece most likely evolved from the Alfil of Shatranj. It is also called Prime Minister, as the words for Elephant and Prime Minister in Chinese (Xiang) sound the same. The Elephant is a piece used in Xiangqi (Chinese chess). As the game got more technical more pieces were applied to the game. As war got more technical and city walls and castles were being attacked new weapons and strategies were needed. It possesses powerful movement abilities, and is typically used in defense as well as for quick strikes to the opponent’s position from a distance. It was also known as the Ratha (Sanskrit ‘, Avestan ra?a) the Indo-Iranian term for the spoked-wheel chariot of Antiquity. Considered the division of heavy infantry in the game. The Rook was known as the Chariot in the Indian Chaturanga at first and was represented by the elephant figure. In this era, This War Game Elephant was the chariot as previously mentioned that evolved into the modern Rook. Their most famous use in the West was by Pyrrhus of Epirus, Greek general Born 319/318 BC and by Hannibal (247 – 183/182 BC) Punic Carthaginian military This practice spread out across southeast Asia and westwards into the Mediterranean.
Their main use was to charge the enemy, breaking their ranks by trampling them.Ī division of war elephants is known as elephantry. The War Elephant was first employed in India.Ī war elephant was an elephant trained and guided by humans for combat. The definition of marfil refers to the tooth enamel of vertebrates. The bishop’s predecessor in shatranj (medieval chess) was the alfil, meaning elephant, which could leap two squares along any diagonal, and overĪn alfil (or elephant) bishop chess piece comes from the Arabic word al-fil (?), al-fil from the Persian, meaning “elephant” and elefante in Spanish also marfil meaning ivory. As the game of chess converged from its roots (Chaturanga and Shatranj) to the modern game we have today, the Elephant piece finds its way evolving into the Bishop.