According to the
November 2002 issue of
Discover magazine, archaeologists recently discovered that
chess arrived in
Europe 500 years earlier than previously believed. A team of
archaeologists led by Richard Hodges of Britain's
East Anglica University excavated a chess piece from the remains of a fifth-century port city on the coast of
Albania. Hodges says, "The piece was found in a wealthy
Byzantine home, probably belonging to a
Roman merchant capitalizing on trade between Europe and the
far east."
Many chess pieces have been found in Europe from Scotland to Italy, and they date from around the 12th century. Previously, it had been believed that this was when chess became popular in Europe.