Early East Asian Chess Pieces:An overview

Peter Banaschak

Abstract

This paper deals with the materials used in the production of early East Asian chess pieces up to ca. 1650. It does not aim at being a close study of the development of the pieces, but is rather a cursory look over some of the written material collected by the author. (For first contact, the author can most easily be reached by email).

Content

Abstract (this page)

Introductory Notes (this page)

Introductory Notes

The chess games we're dealing with here are

(standard) Chinese Chess, Xiangqi;
Korean Chess, Changgi;
the Japanese Chesses, the various Shôgis.

I will be using the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese names throughout this article, in order to save space. Due to technical restrictions it isn't possible to give the corresponding (Chinese) characters.The transcription systems used are Pinyin for Chinese, McCune-Reischauer (modified) for Korean, and Hepburn for Japanese. The article follows East Asian naming conventions in giving the family name first, then the personal names.