VUČEDOLSKA ŠAHOVNICA
THE VUČEDOL CHECKERBOARD

Summary/Abstract: "It is none other than the Vučedol culture that in terms of diverse and richly decorated checkerboard motifs stands above all other cultures", wrote Schmidt in 1945. In the research presented in the article: "The origin of the Pythagorean proposition in the Vučedol culture in Croatia" (Jurić et al., 2000) it has been determined that the Vučedol culture, lasting from cca 3000 to 2200 BC, was aware of the system of numbers 3, 4 and 5 and thus perceived the method of drawing geometric presentations whose lengths of sides related to one another as whole numbers, presenting the basis of what was later defined as the Pythagorean proposition. In this work the authors have explored the relations among the presentations of different combinations of squares and quadrangles, called "checkerboards" with systems of numbers 3, 4, 5 as well as 5, 12, 13, and 7, 24 and 25. It has been presupposed that the Vučedol culture checkerboards were used for presentations of various mathematical calculations. Out of the numerous differing presentations of checkerboards, the checkerboard with 72 fields numerically containing 12 triangles of the 3, 4, 5 system was specially analysed. Also, a hypothesis was put forward stating that such a checkerboard could have been used in time calculations, thus revealing that members of the Vučedol culture were acquainted with a calendar, according to which the new year started after the winter solstice.

• Details
• Contents