Why doesn't archaeology settle the origins of xiangqi?
These answers restate the rules implemented by our open-source engine, which follows the WXF laws and is regression-tested against the official 110-diagram repetition casebook. Where an answer refers to a specific position, that position lives on the linked reference page, where the build verifies it against the engine before publishing.
Direct answer
Because xiangqi sets were traditionally wood, paper and low-fired ceramic, materials that decay quickly and rarely survive burial the way stone, jade or bronze objects do. Archaeology is very good at dating durable artefacts and much weaker at recovering perishable everyday objects, which is exactly the category a game set falls into.
What this means for the evidence record
The absence of surviving Tang-dynasty or earlier xiangqi sets is not strong evidence that the game did not exist in some form then; it mostly reflects what does and does not survive in the ground. This is why the dating of xiangqi leans so heavily on written sources and on the game's own internal logic rather than on physical finds.
A useful contrast
Go (圍棋) is far better served archaeologically, partly because go boards and stones were sometimes made in more durable materials and partly because go's documented history reaches back considerably further in Chinese sources. That contrast is one reason xiangqi's early history stays comparatively murky.
Related questions
Have any old xiangqi pieces ever been found?
Surviving physical sets are generally much later than the Song period; the earliest evidence for the modern game is textual, not archaeological.
Does this uncertainty apply to the board too?
Yes. A wooden or paper board fares no better in the ground than wooden pieces do.
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