When was Christian/European elements (King with a cross , bishop) and other "Western" elements introduced into Chess. Many historians believe that Chess was started in Eastern Asia (China or India) but if I was to visit any country and play Chess the pieces would still include Christian/Western elements. My question here is when was every chess board replaced with Western styled pieces.
a bit of a followup - how does the "christian" nomenclature tie in with English? because for example in Czech the "bishop" piece isn't a priest, but rather it's called "střelec" - shooter, archer, probably in the meaning of "hunter", or in German it's Läufer - again, not a bishop...
Chessboard: Chess originates in India, as Chaturanga. The Chaturanga board was already an 8x8 board, but with no colored squares. Same for Shatranj, the direct ancestor of chess. See here for a Shatranj board. Colored squares were introduced in the 13th century, in Europe.
As for the name "bishop", the bishop was originally an elephant, and it is still called that in Russian, for example. The bishop's groove originally represented the elephant's tusks, but the English thought of it as a bishop's mitre, and it became a bishop.
As for the king's cross, that's just because European crowns tend to include crosses. It's not Christian, just European.
As for
if I was to visit any country and play Chess the pieces would still include Christian/Western elements.
Have you played Xiangqi or Shogi?
Edit: Forgot to mention the European influence. The European influence on chess began when Shatranj was introduced to Europe. You may as well ask why Xiangqi has a Chinese influence. Chess has a European influence because what people generally refer to when they say "Chess" comes from Europe.
