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Shatranj. The widely played Arabian predecessor of modern chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Anonymous wrote on Mon, Aug 19, 2002 01:33 PM UTC:

Just wanted to say, as far as I know the 1st reference to shatranj in
literature is in the Persian romantic KARNAMAK, 600 A.D. while the birth
of Muhammad in Mecca is 570 A.D. 
As KARNAMAK only 'reported' shatranj but not invented it, we can
reasonably believe that shatranj is older than this and hence, it's simple
to see that origin of Shatranj in Persia at least would be somewhere in
Sasanid era (226-637 A.D.) 

Another thing to mention is that Sumers preceded Babylonians not the
Achaemenids (who preceded Sasanids). It's true that Cyrus the great
(600-529 B.C.) conquered Lydia and Babylon; so the Persian Achaemenid
king, Cyrus, only defeated Babylons and this way we can see Sumers and
Persians are from different roots (actually they had totally diffrent
bases...)