The two blunt points looked more to Western Europeans like the mitre of the bishops, rather than the tusks of an animal unknown to that part of the world. The elephant pieces, which were carved in a round shape with two blunt points, resembling the tusks of the animal that named them turned into a more familiar shape. However, despite the upgrade in the movement range, the bishop became unable to jump over other pieces, which prevented it from becoming too powerful. Upon the adaptation, the elephant became the bishop, a piece that can move as many diagonal squares as possible. ‘Shatranj’ also had two +elephants, or ‘alfil’, pieces that could only move two squares diagonally and jump pieces on the first diagonal square. What Chess Piece Was Originally Called The Elephant? Due to the importance of the queen, the piece became the one with the widest range of movements on the table. However, that is not the case for some pieces.Īs time went by during the 10 th century Europe, it didn’t seem to make much sense to have a counselor as such a relevant piece on the chess table, giving the queen a place.īesides, the counselor only moved one square diagonally, making it a rather weak piece for defense purposes. Pieces like king (shah), rook (rukh), knight (asb or faras), and pawn (sarbaz / piyadeh, or baydaq) were simply translated and found to have a perfect match. ![]() ![]() Some of the old names made absolutely no sense in the European culture of the time, either due to the possible mistranslations or the absence of that animal or element. Not only were the rules modified, but so were some of the names of the pieces. ‘Shatranj’ started suffering the influence of different people when it was brought to the southern portions of Europe by the Muslims during the 10 th Century.
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