Is Hnefatafl Evidence That Chess Was Not Invented In India?

A recent email from Dr. Rene Gralla containing information that raises interesting speculation.  Here it is, complete with links to source information:

THE NEWS: Norwegian people have now learned that chess may not be a product from India (BTW, the author of the column nonchalantly talks of "Persia" in this context) but that chess may be a pure Scandinavian brand in the first place ... since the the roots of the Chess of the Vikings, that famous "Hnefatafl", that date back to LATRUNCULI which was the ancient strategic game of the Roman soldiers and which was much older than the proto-chess Chaturanga from India.

The foregoing fact has been the leitmotiv of a column on chess that has been published by Simen Agdestein in the No. 2 (!!) of the tabloids of Norway - called VG (that means: "Verdens Gang") - on last Wednesday, December 11th, 2013.

 

The chess columnist Simen Agdestein - who is very close to the new World Champion Magnus Carlsen - reports on his first own experiences with Hnefatafl ... and then adds some information on the "8th International Ladies Chess Gala" that had been organised by the German daily "neues deutschland" at Berlin on November 28th, 2013; as part of the program of the event Norway's WIM Silje Bjerke had played an exhibition game of Hnefatafl.

 

... please inform the visitors of your webseite about the fact that Hnefatafl has now become a topic even in one of the chess columns of Norway's very popular tabloid VG! And please publish the scan of that very column on your great website - since I think that the foregoing information is very interesting for the visitors of your website. 

 

Unfortunately, the article was in PDF and if there is a way to post a PDF here at Blogger, I haven't figured it out.  So I copied part of it using the "free tools" I have on my computer -- and after comparing the first sentence letter by letter, I saw that it was a total mish-mash.  So I'm going back to the drawing board on this and will try again!

 

Stay tuned!

Added December 29, 2013 at 6:14 p.m. Milwaukee, WI time:

Here is a scan of the article! Sorry about the resolution, this is the best I could do: