C., or to Ramses IV 1559 to 1493 B.C.; the date is long after the
period ascribed to the Sanskrit writings, (said to be about 3000
B.C.) even taking the shortest estimate of the age of the Ancient
Hindu and Brahman writings assigned by Sanskrit scholars.
Sir Gardiner Wilkinson says, the pieces are all of the same size
and form, and deduces from this the inference that the game
represented a species of draughts.
Mr. Lane the Egyptologist, apparently no chess player himself,
in describing the sedentary games of Egypt, says that the people
of that country take great pleasure in chess, (which they call
Sutreng), Draughts (Dameh), and Backgammon (Tawooleh).
Sir F. Madden says, it is however possible that the Ancient
Egyptians may also have possessed a knowledge of chess, for
among the plates of Hieroglyphics by Dr. Burton No. 1, we find
at Medinet Habou two representations of some tabular game, closely
resembling it, and I am informed that a more perfect representation
exists on the Temples at Thebes.
Sir John Gardiner Wilkinson, the celebrated Egyptologist,
in a note appended to Mr. George Rawlinson's of Herodotus
says:
"Still more common was the game of Draughts miscalled
chess, which is Hab, a word now used by the Arabs for Men or
Counters.
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