1283 chess icons from "El Libro de los Juegos"

First thing to know is that chess is an adaptation of a persian game call  shatranj, wich is an adaptation of an even older indian game.

In 1283 spaniard king Alfonso, comisioned the translation of the rules of chess into spanish, and included a set of ilustrations of the game, this being the surviving oldest ilustrations of chess.

At that time the game was different, than modern chess, not just on the rules of the game but on the pieces themself. As the pieces go, they where just taken straigh from  shatranj, this being the King, the Councillor, the Elephant, the Horse, the Charriot, and the Pawn.

Notice here that there was not Queen, as they didn't see a place in war for a woman, the Councillor will move only 1 step, as the book explains, his job is to be close to the King, protecting him

The Queen, on modern chess, is the most powerfull piece, and it is the leader of the atacks, usually leaving a charriot and a line of pawns to protect the king.

The Elephant eventually was replaced by the bishops. The Elephant still move in diagonals, as the book explains when the elephants charge on the lines of the enemy, the soldiers will jump to the sides to get away from the elephants, so at the moment of impact the elephant will enter the enemy lines on a diagonal line to hit the enemies who have run to the sides.

One thing I notice is that the kings already sport a cross on the crown. This is completly extrange to shatranj, perhaps unique to chess. Most likelly a request of the catholic spaniard king.

Is there any documentation or research of since when, and where they started to crown the king with a cross? Or is this the oldest acount of this feature?

At this time I am studying this book, And I am very interested on the icons they use to represent the pieces. I am trying to get a clear image of  them.

One thing I notice about the way the diagrams are presented that is diferent to how we present them today is that they are going side to side, instead of up to down. So you can see both players at each side and the diagram. They let us know who move is, by a gesture or other graphic means.

I think the reason why they eventually chance from side-to-side to up-to-down is becouse you will need bigger set of stamps to print a game, for example notice the horse need to face to the enemy lines so they need 2 prints facing oposite sides to do this, as in up-to-down you just need 1 print and diferent ink colors.

One last note, shatranj does have a chequered board, but it is not alternated colored, At this time I have  not info on since when and why chess boards use 2 alternated colors.

Thanks for the intresting info. I think I read that in the Indian version the Bishop could jump over a piece like a Knight. Interesting Historical info for sure.

I check the indian version of chess, and the elephant have several options to move, one of them is jumping over as you say.

Perhaps it will be interesting to do a comparation of how the different pieces move.

I did a graphic comparing the icons of modern chess, the icons of modern shatranj and the icons from the "book of the games" (libro de los juegos).

The las column is hand drawings I made base on what I can figure out from the zoom of the pictures I got from the book, I think this way they can be seeing more clearly.