The carved chess piece with elongated arabesques to front.
4.8 cm. height
CATALOGUE NOTE. Other comparable ivory chess pieces can be found in the British Museum; Metropolitan Museum, New York and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Chess pieces such as the present example, may possibly have been made in the Iraqi cities of Basra or Samarra, not only for themselves and their own market, but for the Fatimids of Egypt and Syria too. However, an unlocated piece bearing some similarities to the current example (but made of wood) has been attributed to Afghanistan during the 11th-12th century Ghazni period.