Shona divination

Bravo! These are beautiful representations of the African diviner's art. There are many more to be found throughout Africa. As a collection, their suggestion of an ancestral form of chess or proto-chess is quite unmistakable. Ned Munger has commented on this and as a rule, it is possible to see close relationship between the visionary aspects of earlier divination systems and ancient board games. In general, I find the anthropological basis of games appears far more truthful and fascinating than the historical and as Munger laments, we are bereft of Afro-Egyptian histories that could put some dates on many of these items and bring them into the fold of "chess origins". Altogether, the archaeological record and the anthropological network rears back towards pre-historic times. Although historians argue incessantly about the true date and culture of chess, the foundations of the game apparently have less to do with proclaimed attributions listed among various researched declarations and opinions. One topical aspect of the African "dice" is their close resemblance to North and South American Indian casting sticks - NA women's games in particular. I have some interesting photos of those taken fairly recently during one of our museum tours. Otherwise, for reference sake, the nicely illustrated "Art and Oracle - African Art and Rituals of Divination" issued by the Met contains many wonderful pictures of divination events and objects used in the practice. My feeling on the entire subject of chess and chess history is that we should not allow ourselves to be led astray by deterministic scholars such as H.J.R. Murray. Chess is just the tip of a much larger iceberg and a good deal of what it tells us - even today - is that the womb of a great goddess held the bulk of its secrets before the dawn of any subsequently appearing chess or chaturanja a bientot DMc