In the 20th century new texts in the original Greek language were discovered in the Archimedes Palimpsest, and they contain words that lead to the idea that his main concern was not the creation of new forms as previously believed, but the question in how many ways these pieces can be combined back into a square. For ages it was known only from indirect references and incomplete translations into Arabic and Latin. When Archimedes died in 212 BC at the hands of a rookie Roman soldier, his writings were considered timeless already, but the Stomachion treatise has been the least understood and was almost lost. The history of the stomachion puzzle is not only more than twice as long, it is surrounded by mystery every step of the way. The first printed reference to the game of tangrams is a book published in China in 1813, although its roots may lie in the furniture used during the Song dynasty in the 12th century. Whatever the origin of the game and its name, here is a stomach turner. The Romans themselves knew it as Stomachion, an apparent corruption after a misleading translation into Arabic (where vowels are not written) and confusion with the Greek word for abdominal pain (or stomach ache), which was also used figuratively as meaning “that which drives me mad” ( ὀστομάχιον, stomachêin). In the fourth century, the Roman poet Ausonius wrote in his Cento Nuptialis that the Greek called it Ostomachion, a word meaning a fight ( μάχη, mákhion) with bones ( ὀστέον, ostéon) in reference to the pieces which were often made out of ivory. Several authors of antiquity have left traces of the puzzle's existence in their work. Although it was alternatively known as Loculus Archimedius or ‘Archimedes' box’ in Roman times, he was probably not the inventor of the puzzle, but his examinations of its geometrical properties made it a popular toy. Animals, buildings, stars and other interesting shapes can be made with them, not unlike the Chinese tangram. Throughout the ages, people have amused themselves with the design of new shapes with these pieces. It consists of 14 pieces drawn from a square. It was described by the mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse ( Αρχιμήδης ο Συρακούσιος) in the 3rd century BC, but his words have survived only fragmentarily. The stomachion is perhaps the world's oldest puzzle.
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