A man holds an ivory chessman July 28, 2002. Believed to be the oldest piece in Europe,
it was found in the ancient southern Albanian city of Butrint in Sarande some 300
km from Tirana two weeks ago. The find suggests the game that originated in India
in the fourth or fifth centuries, was played in Mediterranean countries 500 years
earlier that it was previously thought to have arrived on the European continent.
The 4-cm-high ivory piece, which was found by local archaeologists led by a Richard
Hodges, a British professor, has a little cross and is either a king or a queen.
REUTERS/Arben Celi
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