100 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



men or of animals, asserts that as they were often a span or 

 more in height, the chess-players had a special attendant 

 whose duty was to move the pieces from one square to 



another.* 



The great Sassanian monarch Khusrau II, Parwiz, whose 

 reign began in 603 A. D., was the most luxurious of the 

 Persian sovereigns of this dynasty. The famous Persian 

 poet Firdausi, in his Shah Nameh, writes in enthusiastic 

 phrase of this sovereign's crown, of his jewelled bracelets, and 

 of his ivory throne. His panoply of war was no less superb, 

 for he wore, according to Firdausi, a coat-of-mail the links 

 of which were of gold, while each and every button was 

 adorned with a precious stone.f 



Sets of chessmen were made of ivory at an early period, 

 usually for royal or princely devotees of this noble game. 

 Among the oldest examples in Europe are six pieces now in 

 the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, all that remain of a 

 complete set. They are said to have belonged to Charle- 

 magne and are believed, from their type and style, to have 

 been made in Constantinople in the early part of the ninth 

 century. The figures are elaborately carved and are garbed 

 in the fashion favoured by the Greeks of the time of Charle- 

 magne. India, however, has furnished an even earlier set of 

 chessmen, found in the ruins of Brahmunabad in Sindh. 

 As this city was destroyed by an earthquake in the eighth 

 century, these pieces, which are carved into a severely sim- 

 ple shape without any ornamentation, must be assigned to 

 that century at least. These are now in the East India 

 Museum. { 



The set of ivory chessmen said to have been given by the 



*Ibid., p. 9. 



fMrne. Jane Dieulafoy, "La Perse, La Chaldsee et La Susiane," Paris, 1887, p. 555. 

 J William Maskell, "Ivories Ancient and Modern," South Kensington Art Handbooks 

 No. 2, pp. 77, 78. 



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