The Tangram (also known as "Seven Boards Of Skill", "7 Tricky Pieces", "7 Clever Pieces", and "Chinese Puzzle") is a dissection puzzle consisting of 7 flat shapes, called TANS, which are put together to form shapes. The objective of the puzzle is to form a specific shape (given only an outline or silhouette) using all seven pieces (pieces may not overlap). It is reputed to have been invented in China during the Song Dynasty (was an era of Chinese history that began in 960 and continued until 1279), and then carried over to Europe by trading ships in the early 19th century. It became very popular in Europe for a time then, and then again during World War I. It is one of the most popular dissection puzzles in the world. A Chinese psychologist has termed the Tangram "the earliest psychological test in the world", albeit one made for entertainment rather than for analysis.
The Tangram challenges the puzzler to produce a given silhouette using all 7 pieces.
This Tangram set includes 2 sets of the 7 wooden pieces Tangram (Total of 14 wood pieces) and 64 glossy silhouette cards. Each card showing on one side the silhouette you can try and build, and the solution on the other side, and will provide different challenges and hours upon hours of quality entertainment and fun for the entire family.
Etymology
History
The Tangram had already been around in China for a long time when it was first brought to America by Captain M. Donnaldson, on his ship, Trader, in 1815. When it docked in Canton, the captain was given a pair of Tangram books (by author Sang-Hsia-koi‘s). They were then brought with the ship to Philadelphia, where it docked in February 1816. The first Tangram book to be published in America was based on the pair brought by Donnaldson.
The puzzle was originally popularized by The Eighth Book Of Tan, a fictitious history of Tangram, which claimed that the game was invented 4,000 years prior by a god named Tan. The puzzle eventually reached England, where it became very fashionable. The craze quickly spread to other European countries, this was mostly due to a pair of British Tangram books, The Fashionable Chinese Puzzle, and the accompanying solution book, Key. Soon, Tangram sets were being exported in great number from China, made of various materials, from glass, to wood, to tortoise shell. Many of these unusual and exquisite Tangram sets made their way to Denmark. Danish interest in Tangrams skyrocketed around 1818, when two books on the puzzle were published. The first of these was Mandarinen (About the Chinese Game). This was written by a student at Copenhagen University, which was a non-fictional work about the history and popularity of Tangrams. The second, Det nye chinesiske Gaadespil (The new Chinese Puzzle Game), consisted of 339 puzzles copied from The Eighth Book of Tan, as well as one original. One contributing factor in the popularity of the game in Europe was that although the Catholic Church forbade many forms of recreation on the Sabbath, they made no objection to puzzle games such as the Tangram. Tangrams were first introduced to the German public by industrialist Friedrich Adolf Richter around 1891. The sets were made out of stone, and marketed under the name "The Anchor Puzzle“. More internationally, the First World War saw a great resurgence of interest in Tangrams, on the homefront and trenches of both sides. During this time, it occasionally went under the name of "The Sphinx" an alternative title for the "Anchor Puzzle" sets.
