Search

A large chess variant with 52 pieces originally described in a 1800s Ottoman Turkish book as šaṭranǧ-i kabīr, or great chess, appears under various names in a number of subsequent Western sources, including authoritative works on chess history and variants. Game rules as presented in the latter are seriously flawed though, with inaccuracies regarding pieces array and moves. Over a period of more than two centuries, baseless assumptions, misreadings of previous sources and outright errors gradually accumulating in the literature have changed the game almost beyond recognition. With some of the game’s aspects not covered even by the original Turkish source, reconstructed rules are suggested and discussed, as well as a reformed variant.

A large chess variant played on a 12x12 board was inadvertently created by G. H. Verney, author of Chess Eccentricities, who seriously misinterpreted one of his sources, A. van der Linde’s Quellenstudien zur Geschichte des Schachspiels. Despite its serendipitous origins, the game, for which the name Verney’s Duodecimal Chess seems appropriate, is surprisingly playable. A set of rules is suggested since those provided by Verney are incomplete.

International audience; This study represents the first extensive systematic investigation of the Miocene mammalian faunas of the Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), stored in the Macedonian Museum of Natural History, Skopje. They range in age from perhaps the early Miocene to the early Ruscinian, but the bulk of the fossils represent middle Turolian mammals. At least 57 taxa have been identified, from 25 different paleontological sites, mostly from the Vardar and Strumitsa river basins, but also from the Morievo and Delchevo regions. The richest localities are the middle Turolian localities of Karaslari (with 22 species) and Kiro Kuchuk (17 species). The rich fossil material greatly improves our knowledge of the Turolian Hipparion faunas of the Balkan-Iranian zoogeographic paleo-province, whose westernmost part was mostly documented in Greece and Bulgaria. The fauna displays the typical faunal features of the Balkan Pikermian biome, with dominance of hipparions (especially H. brachypus, but our revision does not confirm the presence of Hipparion verae in the Turolian faunas) and bovids such as Gazella, Tragoportax, and spiral-horned antelopes. Other forms usually found in the area, such as Microstonyx erymanthius, Dihoplus pikermiensis, chalicotheres, Choerolophodon pentelici, Mesopithecus pentelicus, or Adcrocuta eximia are also common. Several new forms have been identified among the carnivores, the giraffids and the bovids. The Macedonian material contributes to reconstructing the history of several taxa such as Simocyon, Metailurus, several hipparion species, Propotamochoerus, Bohlinia, Sivatherium. The most noticeable features of these Turolian faunas are: the abundance of spiral-horned antelopes, and rarity of antelopes of the Protoryx-Pachytragus group, as in Bulgaria, the co-existence of chalicotheriins and schizotheriins, the frequency of Dihoplus compared to Ceratotherium, the presence of Chilotherium, which reaches its westernmost longitude, and the presence of Anancus sp. in some localities, considered here as post-Pikermian.

A note by A. Chernevski in the 1877 Shakhmatny Listok described two chess variants played in Samarkand, present-day Uzbekistan. One, the “Bukharan game”, is a slightly modified version of shatranj, similar to Rumi chess as described in Murray’s History of Chess. The other, the “Persian game with a queen” resembles to some extent the Persian chess described in 1846 in the Chess Player’s Chronicle but differs from it in several important aspects. Chernevski’s information, which includes recorded games by native players, is absent from later sources on chess history. A summary of Chernevski’s report is provided, with a discussion of several other historical chess variants, and various errors that have crept into their description in the literature.

International audience; We describe here the Turolian (late Miocene) faunas from several fossiliferous localities at Gorna Sushitsa (South-Western Bulgaria). The composite fauna is typical for the Turolian of the Balkan. The stratigraphically lowermost locality, GS2, yields more primitive stages of Adcrocuta eximia and Paramachaerodus orientalis than at Pikermi, and could be an early Turolian one, very close to the lower/middle Turolian transition. The faunas from stratigraphically higher localities are characteristic of the Middle Turolian and display (especially those from the upper levels), the features of the typical Pikermi fauna. The Gorna Sushitsa faunas indicate a xerophytic open woodland/shrubland at that time.

International audience; We describe a virtually complete proboscidean cranium and other remains from the late Miocene of Skoura near Ouarzazate, Morocco, assigning them to a derived species of Tetralophodon. African finds of this genus are scarce and are of additional interest due to their potential importance for elephantid phylogeny. The Skoura material adds significantly to the African record of non-anancine tetralophodonts and to the Neogene proboscidean record of northwestern Africa.

Recent revalidation of the species Mammuthus rumanus influences several interrelated aspects of mammoth evolution. European material referred to M . rumanus might provide a useful background for the identification of finds from Africa and the Middle East. It seems plausible that M . rumanus originated in Africa c. 3.5 Ma and migrated to Eurasia via the Levant. While remaining poorly known, M . rumanus apparently played a significant role in the dispersal of mammoths to Eurasia, and any additional information on that species might elucidate problems of the earlier stages of mammoth evolution in Africa and their subsequent dispersal.

Three molars from northeast Bulgaria are attributed to cf. Protanancus sp., based on their distinctive morphology. These are the first finds from Europe referable to the amebelodontid genus Protanancus, hitherto known from Africa and Asia. The material from NE Bulgaria differs from both named species of the genus, P. macinnesi and P. chinjiensis, displaying a combination of derived and primitive characters. La morphologie distinctive de trois molaires du nord-est de la Bulgarie permet de les rapporter à cf. Protanancus sp. Ce sont les premiers spécimens européens qu’on puisse rattacher à l’amébélodontidé Protanancus, connu en Afrique etnen Asie. Le matériel de Bulgarie du NE, par le mélange de caractères primitifs et dérivés, diff ère des deux espèces nommées de ce genre, P. macinnesi et P. chinjiensis.

The paper describes a deinothere palate preserving both deciduous tooth rows from the area of Veles, Republic of Macedonia. The specimen is referred to Deinotherium gigantissimum, the largest and latest European deinothere species. Similar finds from the late Miocene of Southeast Europe and Asia Minor are discussed.

A hominid upper premolar was discovered in the Azmaka quarry, near Chirpan (Bulgaria). The associated fauna, especially the co-occurrence of Choerolophodon and Anancus among the proboscideans, and Cremohipparion matthewi and Hippotherium brachypus among the hipparions, constrains the age of the locality to the second half of the middle Turolian (ca. 7 Ma), making it the latest pre-human hominid of continental Europe and Asia Minor. The available morphological and metric data are more similar to those of Ouranopithecus from the Vallesian of Greece than to those of the early to middle Turolian hominids of Turkey and Georgia, but the time gap speaks against a direct phyletic link, and Turolian migration from the east cannot be rejected.

The paper describes the fossil proboscideans stored in the Varna Regional Museum of History – Department of Natural History in Varna, Northeast Bulgaria. Small but important, the collection contains remains of proboscidean taxa ranging from the middle Miocene to the Pleistocene.

Geraads, Denis, Spassov, Nikolaï, Hristova, Latinka, Markov, Georgi N., Tzankov, Tzanko (2011): Upper Miocene mammals from Strumyani, South-Western Bulgaria. Geodiversitas 33 (3): 451-484, DOI: 10.5252/g2011n3a3, URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5252/g2011n3a3

The binomen Stegoloxodon indonesicus was proposed by Kretzoi (1950) for a dwarfed elephantoid from Java, Indonesia. Based on a single molar from Ci Pangglosoran near Bumiayu initially referred to Elephas planifrons by van der Maarel (1932), Stegoloxodon indonesicus was considered a synonym of Elephas celebensis (Hooijer, 1949) by Maglio (1973). Van den Bergh et al. (1992) accepted a close relationship between these two taxa but argued in support of their separate specific status. Notably, in this and later works (e.g. van den Bergh 1999; van den Bergh et al. 1996, 2001) the generic name used for the two species was “Elephas” between quotation marks, an approach initially adopted for “E.” celebensis by Sondaar (1984, p.229), who noted that the “so-called “Elephas” celebensis from Sulawesi is most probably not Elephas at all”. The uncertain generic position of “E.” celebensis (and “E.” indonesicus) was further emphasized by van den Bergh (1999), who provided a revised diagnosis for “Elephas” celebensis, argued against Maglio’s (1973) hypothesis of paedomorphosis as the reason for primitive characters in this species, and suggested relationship to Primelephas or “one of the Stegotetrabelodontinae”, not entirely rejecting E. planifrons as a possible ancestor however. Van den Bergh’s analysis of “Elephas” celebensis is crucial for the understanding of the affinities of both this taxon and the closely related dwarf from Java but does not take a taxonomical step logically following from the author’s arguments.