>>14406478chaturanga and shatranj were the games chess derived from, and they had an Elephant piece. When the sets came to Europe, where they had never seen an elephant, each country interpreted the piece with two upright tusks in different ways: some as a bishop's mitre, some as a jester cap, and others by how the new piece moved (German Laufer)
The Rook came from Persian rukh for "chariot". Not sure how it became a tower, but I think it happened in Germany, maybe because the traditional shatranj piece shape kind of looked like a turret if you squinted hard.
