Persian Backgammon Chess Board Handcraft Inlaid Khatam
Exquisite work of art handpainted raised surface Game
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USD 449.00 |
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USD 449.00 |
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Monday, October 27, 2008 |
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Wednesday, November 26, 2008 |
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Ottawa, Ontario |
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Description
Persian Backgammon Chess Board Handcraft Inlaid Khatam Beautiful Persian Backgammon Chess Board Handcraft Inlaid Khatam Bivalve - Mother of All Backgammon Board Games! This Exquisite Game Board is a work of art handpainted with Floral motifs, Peacocks and Birds on a raised surface and in excellent condition. Beautiful craftsmanship. Backgammon is a board game for two players in which the playing pieces[1] are moved according to the roll of dice. A player wins by removing all of his checkers from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits. Backgammon is a member of the tables family, one of the oldest classes of board games in the world. Although luck plays an important role, there is a large scope for strategy. With each roll of the dice a player must choose from numerous options for moving his checkers and anticipate possible counter-moves by the opponent. Players may raise the stakes during the game. There is an established repertory of common tactics and occurrences. Like chess, backgammon has been studied with great interest by computer scientists. Owing to this research, backgammon software has been developed capable of beating world-class human players. History Brädspel ("board game") set recovered from the warship Vasa, which sank in 1628. Herr Goeli, from the 14th century Codex Manesse The ancient Egyptian game senet resembled backgammon,[2] with moves controlled by the roll of dice. However, the Royal Game of Ur, played in ancient Mesopotamia, is a more likely ancestor of modern day table games. Excavations at Shahr-i Sokhta (Persian ??? ????? , literally "The Burnt City") in Iran have shown that a similar game existed there around 3000 BC. The artifacts include two dice and 60 checkers, and the set is believed to be 100 to 200 years older than the sets found in Ur.[3] The ancient Romans played a number of games remarkably similar to backgammon. Ludus duodecim scriptorum ("Game of twelve lines") used a board with three rows of 12 points each, and the checkers were moved across all three rows according to the roll of dice. Little specific text about the gameplay has survived.[4] Tabula, meaning "table" or "board", was a game mentioned in an epigram of Byzantine Emperor Zeno (AD 476–481). It was similar to modern backgammon in that the object of the game was to be the first to bear off all of one's checkers. Players threw three dice and moved their checkers in opposing directions on a board of 24 points.[5][6] Touraj Daryaee (2006)— on the subject of the first written mention of early precursors of backgammon—writes: 'The game of backgammon is first mentioned in Bhartrhari’s Vairagyasataka (p. 39), composed around the late sixth or early seventh century CE. The use of dice for the game is another indication of its Indic origin, since dice and gambling were a favorite pastime in ancient India. The rules of the game, however, first appeared in the Middle Persian text Wizarisni Catrang ud Nihisni New Ardaxsir (Explanation of Chess and Invention of Backgammon), composed in the sixth century during the rule of the Sasanian king Khousro I (530–571). The text assigns its invention to the Persian sage Wuzurgmihr (Arabic/Persian) Buzarjumihr/Buzorgmihr, who was the minister of King Khousro I, as a challenge for the Indian sages.'[7] In the 11th century Shahnameh, the Persian poet Ferdowsi credits Burzoe with the invention of the tables game nard in the 6th century. He describes an encounter between Burzoe and a Raja visiting from India. The Raja introduces the game of chess, and Burzoe demonstrates nard, played with dice made from teak.[8][9] (Today, Nard is the name for the Persian version of backgammon, which has different initial positions and objectives.) H.J.R. Murray ref 6.1.2] [details many versions of Backgammon; modern Nard is noted there as being the same as backgammon and maybe dating back to 300 - 500AD in the Babylonian Talmud. The jeux de tables (Game of Tables), predecessors of modern backgammon, first appeared in France during the 11th century and became a favorite pastime of gamblers. In 1254, Louis IX issued a decree prohibiting his court officials and subjects from playing.[9][10] Tables games were played in Germany in the 12th century, and had reached Iceland by the 13th century. The Alfonso X manuscript Libro de los juegos, completed in 1283, describes rules for a number of dice and tables games in addition to its extensive discussion of chess.[11] By the 17th century, tables games had spread to Sweden. A wooden board and checkers were recovered from the wreck of the Vasa among the belongings of the ship's officers. Backgammon appears widely in paintings of this period, mainly those of Dutch and German painters (Van Ostade, Jan Steen, Bosch and others). One surviving artwork is "Cardsharps" by Caravaggio (The backgammon board is in the lower left.) Others are the Hell of Bosch and interior of an Inn by Jan Steen. In the 16th century, Elizabethan laws and church regulations prohibited playing tables, but by the 18th century backgammon was popular among the English clergy.[9] Edmund Hoyle published A Short Treatise on the Game of Back-Gammon in 1743; this described rules and strategy for the game and was bound together with a similar text on whist.[12] In English, the word "backgammon" is most likely derived from "back" and Middle English "gamen", meaning "game" or "play". The earliest use documented by the Oxford English Dictionary was in 1650.[13] The most recent major development in backgammon was the addition of the doubling cube. It was first introduced in the 1920s in New York City among members of gaming clubs in the Lower East Side.[14] The cube required players not only to select the best move in a given position, but also to estimate the probability of winning from that position, transforming backgammon into the expected value-driven game played in the 20th and 21st centuries.[14] Rules Paths of movement for red and black, with checkers in the starting position The objective is to remove (bear off) all of one's own checkers from the board before one's opponent can do the same. The checkers are scattered at first and may be blocked or hit by the opponent. As the playing time for each individual game is short, it is often played in matches, where victory is awarded to the first player to reach a certain number of points. Setup Each side of the board has a track of 12 long triangles, called points. The points are considered to be connected across one edge of the board, forming a continuous track in the shape of a horseshoe, and are numbered from 1 to 24. Each player begins with two checkers on his 24-point, three checkers on his 8-point, and five checkers each on his 13-point and his 6-point. The two players move their checkers in opposing directions, each from his own 24-point towards his 1-point.[15] Points 1 through 6 are called the home board or inner board, and points 7 through 12 are called the outer board. The 7-point is referred to as the bar point, and the 13-point as the mid point.[15][16] Movement To start the game, each player rolls one die, and the player with the higher number moves first using both the numbers shown. Both dice must land completely flat on the right hand side of the gameboard. The players then alternate turns, rolling two dice at the beginning of each turn.[15][16] After rolling the dice a player must, if possible, move his checkers according to the number of pips shown on each die. For example, if the player rolls a 6 and a 3 (notated as "6-3"), that player must move one checker six points forward, and another or the same checker three points forward. The same checker may be moved twice as long as the two moves are distinct: six and then three, or three and then six. If a player rolls two of the same number, called doubles, that player must play each die twice. For example, upon rolling a 5-5 that player may move up to four separate checkers forward five spaces each. For any roll, if a player can move both dice, that player is compelled to do so. If a player cannot move either dice in a roll, given the position of his checkers then that turn is over and the turn passes to the opponent. If it is possible to move either die, but not both, the higher number must be played. For example if a player rolls 6-3 and can only move a 6 or a 3, the 6 being the bigger number must be moved; if it is possible to move the 3 but not the 6 then the 3 is played.[15][16] Further, if one die is unable to be moved, but such a move is made possible by the moving of the other die, that move is compulsory. For example, in the case of a 6-3 roll, no moves of 3 are possible by any checker. However there are 2 moves of a 6, with checker A or checker B. If checker A is moved 6, the 3 still cannot be played. If checker B is moved 6, a 3 now may be played. The rules state that the player is forced into moving checker B 6 points, and then 3. In short, the rules compel a player to exhaust every option available to complete both die moves where possible. In the course of a move, a checker may land on any point that is unoccupied or is occupied only by a player's own checkers. It may also land on a point occupied by exactly one opposing checker; such a lone piece is called a blot. In this case, the blot has been hit, and is placed in the middle of the board on the bar that divides the two sides of the playing surface. A checker may never land on a point occupied by two or more opposing checkers; thus, no point is ever occupied by checkers from both players simultaneously.[15][16] Checkers placed on the bar re-enter the game through the opponent's home board. A roll of 2 allows the checker to enter on the 23-point, a roll of 3 on the 22-point, and so forth. A player may not move any other checkers until all checkers on the bar belonging to that player have re-entered the game.[15][16] When all of a player's checkers are in that player's home board, that player may start removing them; this is called bearing off. A roll of 1 may be used to bear off a checker from the 1-point, a 2 from the 2-point, and so on. A die may not be used to bear off checkers from a lower-numbered point unless there are no checkers on any higher points.[15][16] For example if a player rolls a 6 and a 5, but has no checkers on the 6-point, though 2 checkers remain on the 5-point, then the 6 and the 5 must be used to bear off the 2 checkers from the 5-point. When bearing off, a player may also move a lower die roll before the higher even if that means 'the full value of the higher die' is not fully utilized. For example, if a player has exactly 1 checker remaining on the 6-point, and rolls a 6 and a 1, the player may move the 6-point checker 1 place to the 5-point with the lower die roll of 1, and then bear that piece off the 5-point using the die roll of 6; this is sometimes useful tactically. If one player has not borne off any checkers by the time that player's opponent has borne off all fifteen, then the player has lost a gammon, which counts for double a normal loss. If the losing player has not borne off any checkers and still has checkers on the bar or in the opponent's home board, then the player has lost a backgammon, which counts for triple a normal loss.[15][16] From Wikepedia: Khatam is one of persian versions of marquetry, and is the art of decorating the surface of wooden articles with delicate pieces of wood, bone and metal precisely-cut geometrical shapes. Marquetry one of the finest manual artworks of Iran. The materials used in the construction of inlaid articles can be in gold, silver, brass, aluminum and twisted wire. Various types of inlaid articles and their quality are known by the size and the geometrical designs. The smaller the pieces, the higher the quality. Designing of inlaid articles is highly elaborated. In each cubic centimeter of inlaid work, up to approximately 250 pieces of metal, bone and wood are laid side by side. This art, to some extent, has existed in Iran from long ago. Inlaid articles in the Safavid era took on a special significance as artists created their precious artworks. These works include; doors and windows, mirror frames, Quran boxes, inlaid boxes, pen and penholders, lanterns and inlaid ornamented shrines.
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