History of Chess Sets — From Ivory Carvings to the Modern Standard

The Earliest Chess Pieces: India and Persia, 6th–7th Century

Chess is believed to have originated in the Gupta Empire of northern India, probably during the 6th century AD, as a game called chaturanga, meaning "four divisions of the military." The four piece types corresponded directly to the divisions of an ancient Indian army: the chariot (ratha), the elephant (gaja), the cavalry (ashva), and the infantry (padati), alongside a king and his counsellor. Early Indian pieces were highly abstract, closer to tokens than sculptures, and were carved from materials such as ivory, bone, and hardwood.

When the game passed into Persia as chatrang and later shatranj in the late 6th and early 7th centuries, the Persians inherited both the rules and the abstract piece conventions. The oldest confirmed chess pieces in the world, the Afrasiab chessmen, were excavated near Samarkand in modern Uzbekistan and are dated to approximately the 7th century AD. These seven pieces, carved from ivory, represent abstract forms that indicate function rather than portraying human or animal figures in any realistic sense. The Persian tradition of abstract design would shape the next several centuries of chess equipment across the Islamic world.

Islamic Chess Pieces: Abstract by Principle

Following the Arab conquest of Persia in the 7th century, chess spread rapidly through the Islamic world and reached as far as the Iberian Peninsula by the 8th century. Islamic craftsmen were constrained by religious restrictions on the figurative depiction of humans and animals, a principle reflected in the highly abstract forms their chess pieces took. Rather than miniature kings and queens, Islamic sets featured elegant column and dome shapes, cylindrical forms with carved notches to suggest movement or rank, and pieces differentiated by height and silhouette rather than by portrayed identity.

These sets were nonetheless objects of considerable craftsmanship. Rock crystal, ivory, amber, and terracotta were all used, and the finest examples, produced for caliphs and courtly patrons, were works of applied art. Several examples survive in European museum collections, having been brought back during the Crusades or acquired through trade. The Islamic abstract style remained dominant in the Mediterranean and Near East for centuries and left a lasting influence on later European conceptions of the chess piece as a formal object.

European Figural Pieces: Kings, Queens, and Bishops Emerge

As chess entered Christian Europe from around the 10th century onwards, European craftsmen applied their own cultural and artistic frameworks to the pieces. The abstract counsellor of the Persian board became a queen, reflecting European feudal society's familiarity with powerful royal women. The chariot, largely unknown as a vehicle of war in medieval Europe, was reimagined as a castle tower, giving rise to the rook as we know it. Elephants became bishops, the pastoral staffs of the church being a recognisable emblem of rank. Knights on horseback, already familiar from heraldic traditions, needed no reinvention.

European figural chess pieces were carved with increasing sophistication throughout the medieval period, depicting enthroned monarchs, armed knights, and mitred clergy in the styles of Romanesque and later Gothic sculpture. The chess pieces had, in Europe, become a mirror of the feudal hierarchy.

The Lewis Chessmen: Medieval Masterpieces

No medieval chess pieces are more famous than the Lewis Chessmen. Discovered in 1831 in a sand bank near Uig on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, this hoard of 93 pieces dates to the 12th century and is almost certainly of Norse or Scandinavian origin, probably produced in Trondheim, Norway. Carved from walrus ivory and the tooth of a sperm whale, they are expressive, quirky figures: a king seated on a throne gripping his sword, a queen resting her cheek on her hand in apparent contemplation, bishops in full vestments, knights mounted on sturdy ponies, and rooks portrayed not as towers but as armed warriors biting the tops of their shields in a pose evoking the berserker warriors of Old Norse saga.

The Lewis Chessmen are not merely historically significant; they are emotionally present in a way that earlier abstract pieces are not. Their faces carry unmistakable personality. The majority of the pieces are held by the British Museum in London, with eleven remaining in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. They remain the most celebrated examples of medieval chess equipment ever found, and their images have become shorthand for the game's ancient European heritage.

Renaissance and Baroque: Chess as Luxury Object

During the Renaissance and into the baroque period of the 16th and 17th centuries, chess sets for wealthy patrons became increasingly elaborate objects of display. Workshops in Florence, Venice, and later Paris and London produced sets carved from rock crystal, decorated with gold leaf, fashioned from silver and semiprecious stones, or inlaid into elaborate boards of ebony and ivory. These sets were gifts for princes and diplomats, objects in which the quality of the carving was intended to reflect the status of the giver as much as the pleasure of the game. Their very elaborateness often made them impractical for play; the pieces were too precious to be pushed around a board in earnest competition.

18th-Century Chaos: Dozens of Competing Styles

By the 18th century, the manufacture of chess sets had expanded considerably, but without any governing standard. England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain each had their own traditions, and within each country manufacturers produced their own incompatible designs. English players were familiar with the Calvert and Barleycorn patterns. French players used the Regence style. Central European sets might feature almost any figurative interpretation the maker chose.

This lack of standardisation created genuine practical problems. When players from different countries, or even different towns, sat down to play a match, they might find themselves unfamiliar with the opponent's pieces, leading to disputes and delays. As competitive chess became more organised and international in the early 19th century, the need for a universally recognised design became impossible to ignore.

The 1849 Solution: Jaques of London and the Staunton Design

The solution arrived in 1849, when Jaques of London, the sporting goods manufacturer founded in 1795, produced the first Staunton chess set. The design was created by Jaques of London and endorsed by Howard Staunton, the most prominent English chess player of the era and the effective champion of the world, who lent his name to the pattern. The Staunton chess set was a deliberate exercise in clarity: each piece was immediately distinguishable from every other, the king wore a cross, the bishop wore a mitre, the knight was a horse's head in profile, the rook was a crenellated tower, and the queen wore a coronet. The pieces were balanced, weighted with lead shot, and designed to sit stably on a board during play.

The design was an immediate success. Jaques sold sets stamped with Howard Staunton's facsimile signature as a mark of authenticity. Within years, the pattern had been adopted across Europe, and when FIDE, the international chess federation, was founded in 1924, it formalised what players had already understood for decades: the Staunton pattern was the only acceptable design for competitive play. For a full account of the 1849 origin, see our page on the 1849 Staunton chess set and our history of Howard Staunton.

The 20th Century: Plastic, Resin, and the Tournament Set

The 20th century brought new materials and mass production. Plastic and resin sets, manufactured at low cost, made chess accessible to schools, clubs, and households that could not afford wooden sets. The standard tournament set, typically a plastic Staunton pattern with a vinyl roll-up board and a chess clock, became the universal equipment of competitive play from the club level to the world championship. Wooden sets retained their place as objects of quality and gift value, particularly those produced by established makers working in traditional materials.

The Digital Age: Electronic Boards and Online Play

The late 20th and early 21st centuries introduced a further layer of innovation in the form of electronic chess boards capable of recording and transmitting moves, and eventually the vast migration of casual and competitive chess to online platforms. Yet even as millions of games are played daily on screens without physical pieces, the demand for quality wooden and weighted sets has remained robust. The Staunton design, unchanged in its essentials since 1849, continues to serve as the reference point against which all chess equipment is measured.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What are the oldest chess pieces ever found?

The oldest confirmed chess pieces are the Afrasiab chessmen, discovered near Samarkand in modern-day Uzbekistan and dated to approximately the 7th century AD. Carved from ivory, these seven pieces take abstract forms corresponding to the pieces of early shatranj, the Persian form of chess. Scholars generally trace the origins of chess to 6th-century India, where the game was known as chaturanga, but no physical pieces from the Indian origin period have been securely identified. The Afrasiab pieces remain the earliest tangible evidence of chess equipment in existence.

Q: What are the Lewis Chessmen?

The Lewis Chessmen are 93 medieval chess pieces found in 1831 in a sand bank on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Dated to the 12th century, they are almost certainly of Norse or Scandinavian manufacture, probably carved in Trondheim, Norway. The pieces are made from walrus ivory and whale tooth and take an expressive figurative form, depicting kings, queens, bishops, knights, and warriors with considerable personality and detail. They are the most famous medieval chess pieces in the world. The British Museum in London holds 82 of the pieces; the remaining 11 are in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Q: When did chess sets become standardised?

Chess sets became standardised in 1849 when Jaques of London produced the first Staunton chess set, created by Jaques of London and endorsed by Howard Staunton. Before this date, every country and manufacturer produced its own designs, creating persistent confusion at international competitions. The Staunton pattern was adopted informally by chess players across the world within decades of its introduction, and FIDE, the international chess federation, later made it the official standard for all competitive play. The design has remained the universal tournament standard for over 175 years.

Q: What were chess pieces made from in ancient times?

Early chess pieces were made from a wide range of materials reflecting local availability and the owner's means. Ivory from elephant or walrus tusk was the most prized material across many cultures, while bone, hardwood, terracotta, rock crystal, and amber were all widely used. Wealthy patrons commissioned sets in gold, silver, and semi-precious stone. The Lewis Chessmen of the 12th century are carved from walrus ivory, a highly valued commodity in medieval northern Europe. By contrast, ordinary players in the medieval Islamic world often used simple terracotta pieces, while Indian and Persian pieces from the early period were typically carved from elephant ivory or hardwood.