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

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.

[TomPlantagenet]

“When the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.”-Cortana

[beeheart]

I hope someone is filming Dr Finkel every day. What a treasure he is to the human race!

[RascalKyng]

I am surprised Finkel does not have 5x the amount of shared content online. The world needs way more Finkel.

[Haplo-san]

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" .

[blogbalkanstories]

Irving Finkel never ceases to amaze, fascinate, educate and entertain me. What a scholar. It is very unusual to have someone who is so well read in so many different fields - and so passionate about all of them. He should really have a regular show, kind of as the (ancient) history teacher of the world.

[WandaDeeBackroads]

I lived in Korea back in the 1970s where I learned to play janggi, the Korean descendent of Chaturanga, the Indian ancestor of chess. I liked the way guys would play it in the street, squatting down with the game between them, the board made from any old piece of plywood with lines drawn on it and the playing pieces were made from disks cut out of an old broom handle. And they never played it slowly, contemplating every move. They played like maniacs

[amanitamuscaria]

We always learn loads when Irving gives a talk. He's an absolute goldmine.

[Hh-yddj]

Damn, i like this guy. Dude has awesome charisma. I really enjoyed this. Thank you

[johnhrichak]

The visage of Irving Finkle revs up my desire to learn yet humbles my present knowledge of whatever subject he speaks. Listen and learn. And laugh!

[MrBenjaminsavage]

YAY! Irving Finkel! Never can get enough of him.

[charleshuguley]

Dr. Finkel's presentations are always fascinating and entertaining.

[sandfly]

How wonderful. Finally someone talks about the history of chess and it’s many permutations. And that someone is Dr Finkel. Thank you so much.

[paolabolognese]

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

[Dbean]

Do enjoy your talks Irving, you sure squired a massive amount of information, love the story telling not many people have gift to make things enjoyable at the same time learning..

[manfredpseudowengorz]

9:25
couldn't resist, and calculated a rough estimation on that:
rice grain: ~ 2mm x 5 mm.
British Islands: ~ 250k km sq
foot = 0.3048 m
br. islands area * 7 feet / rice grain vol. : ~ 27 * 10^9 grains of rice
the number of rice grains mentioned is (2^65) - 1
~ 3.7 * 10 ^ 19

which is over a billion times more...

You welcome.

[anuradha]

When Anand was champion, there was a huge upswing in people stopping to play cricket and play chess for five minutes instead.
Very accurate indeed

[nickrowley]

The ebony and ivory material change causing sets to become black and white makes sense. Possibly because those were also the materials used for pianos and so maybe were available for carving.

[sam]

I have been married to a wonderful lady for 36 years now. It very nearly never happened because we once, foolishly, played a game of Monopoly.

[willalogicalwf]

My friends company is digitizing the entirety of the OED, unbelievably massive text and fascinating

[aaronwalderslade]

Elephants, chariots, horses, you say. I played chess against an Indian opponent a couple of summers ago on a giant chess set, and he called the rooks cannons, which I thought was fantastic, because they do fire in a straight line until they hit something. I think he did call the Knights elephants, and I don't remember what he called the bishops.