Chessboard
Board games have been known since ancient history, with the oldest records being paintings in mastabas of the First and Third Dynasties of Egypt (3100-2700 BC). The first known version of chess appeared around the 6th century in India and was called Chaturanga, played on a board of the game Ashtapada. This board was monochromatic and divided into eight columns by eight rows, with special marks called "castles" in the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth squares of the "a", "d", "e", and "h" columns, which served a function in Ashtapada, but not in Chaturanga.
Chess
The oldest archaeological chess artifacts, ivory pieces, were excavated in ancient Afrasiab, today's Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, central Asia, and date to about 760, with some of them possibly older. The oldest known chess manual was in Arabic and dates to 840–850, written by al-Adli ar-Rumi (800–870), a renowned Arab chess player, titled "Kitab ash-shatranj" (Book of the chess). This is a lost manuscript, but referenced in later works. The eastern migration of chess, into China and Southeast Asia, has even less documentation than its migration west. The first reference to chess, called "Xiang Qi", in China comes in the "xuán guaì lù" (玄怪录, record of the mysterious and strange) dating to about 800. Alternatively, some contend that chess arose from Chinese chess or one of its predecessors, although this has been contested.