EN
The popular set of chess pieces, seemingly fixed and eternal, does not reflect the look and character of the original version of this game. The first sets discovered in excavations did not contain the figures we know, such as the queen, bishops and knights. Instead, we had a vizier, elephants, chariots, and horsemen, and their cultural significance was different from that to which we are now used. It is worth considering how these changes came to pass and how we can show chronologically the transformation of chess symbolism, from a military game into a court one. The best example is the change of the strongest piece on the chessboard – the vizier – into the queen. Judging by archaeological and historical sources, this transformation took place at the turn of the tenth and eleventh centuries. It may have been influenced by a number of new cultural and also political trends, for chess was not only a game and entertainment, and in the stylistic transformations one can hardly see just an aesthetic change. A set of chess was also a prestigious item, and as such constituted an important symbolic element in the material culture. This article is an attempt to summarize the said transformation; moreover, it contributes to the discussion about the reflection of social, political and cultural changes in the Middle Ages in games.