Thai chess piece
Accession Nr.: | 62.365.6.2 |
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Type: | bone objects; toys and models; ivory carving |
Date of production: |
19th century
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Place of production: |
Piece of an incomplete Thai chess set. Thai chess ('makruk') is a very popular game, similar to chess in Europe, also played with sixteen to sixteen pieces. There are strong similarities in both the rules and the appearance of the pieces; minor differences include the naming of the queen (Thai: 'met', meaning seed), the rook ('ruea', meaning ship) or the pawn (Thai: 'bia', meaning kauri snail). The latter comes from the fact that traditionally these tiny shells were used as pawns in the game.