Origins Despite its relatively recent emergence in the West, there is a much older tradition of dissection amusements in China which likely played a role in its inspiration. In particular, the modular banquet tables of the
Song dynasty bear an uncanny resemblance to the playing pieces of the tangram and there were books dedicated to arranging them together to form pleasing patterns. Several Chinese sources broadly report a well-known Song dynasty polymath Huang Bosi 黄伯思 who developed a form of entertainment for his dinner guests based on creative arrangements of six small tables called 宴几 or 燕几(
feast tables or
swallow tables respectively). One diagram shows these as oblong rectangles, and other reports suggest a seventh table was added later, perhaps by a later inventor. According to Western sources, however, the tangram's historical Chinese inventor is unknown except through the pen name Yang-cho-chu-shih (Dim-witted (?) recluse, recluse = 处士). It is believed that the puzzle was originally introduced in a book titled ''Ch'i chi'iao t'u
, which was already reported as lost in 1815 by Shan-chiao in his book New Figures of the Tangram''. Nevertheless, it is generally believed that the puzzle was invented about 20 years earlier. The prominent third-century mathematician
Liu Hui made use of construction proofs in his works and some bear a striking resemblance to the subsequently developed banquet tables which in turn seem to anticipate the tangram. While there is no reason to suspect that tangrams were used in the proof of the
Pythagorean theorem, as is sometimes reported, it is likely that this style of geometric reasoning went on to exert an influence on Chinese cultural life that led directly to the puzzle. The early years of attempting to date the Tangram were confused by the popular but fraudulently written history by famed puzzle maker
Samuel Loyd in his 1908
The Eighth Book Of Tan. This work contains many whimsical features that aroused both interest and suspicion amongst contemporary scholars who attempted to verify the account. By 1910 it was clear that it was a hoax. A letter dated from this year from the
Oxford Dictionary editor
Sir James Murray on behalf of a number of Chinese scholars to the prominent puzzlist
Henry Dudeney reads "The result has been to show that the man Tan, the god Tan, and the Book of Tan are entirely unknown to Chinese literature, history or tradition." Along with its many strange details ''The Eighth Book of Tan's'' date of creation for the puzzle of 4000 years in antiquity had to be regarded as entirely baseless and false.
Reaching the Western world (1815–1820s) The earliest extant tangram was given to the Philadelphia shipping magnate and congressman Francis Waln in 1802 but it was not until over a decade later that Western audiences, at large, would be exposed to the puzzle. In 1815, American Captain M. Donnaldson was given a pair of author Sang-Hsia-koi's books on the subject (one problem and one solution book) when his ship,
Trader, docked there. They were then brought with the ship to Philadelphia in February 1816. The first tangram book to be published in America was based on the pair brought by Donnaldson. 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, to much enthusiasm. 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.
Second craze in Germany (1891–1920s) Tangrams were first introduced to the German public by industrialist
Friedrich Adolf Richter around 1891. The sets were made out of stone or false
earthenware, and marketed under the name "The Anchor Puzzle". ==Paradoxes==