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Isle of Lewis Chess Men. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Anonymous wrote on Thu, Mar 28, 2002 12:00 AM UTC:
A small point, but the Isle of Lewis is not an English island - it is in Scotland, as you point out later in your text. England and Scotland are different countries within the United Kingdom of Great Britain (i.e. the big island that has England, Scotland and Wales in it) and Northern Ireland (on the next door island that has Ireland on it as well). Otherwise a good site!

bernard wrote on Mon, Apr 22, 2002 04:31 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
what is the history of the design of the rook?

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Mar 30, 2003 08:43 AM UTC:
Three points: (1) If I remember rightly, Norse had a word similar to Rook
which meant 'brave warrior', and this may have influenced the design of
the Rooks.
(2) The anonymous contributor is right to draw attention to the misuse of
'English'. Using 'England' for all of Britain is like using
'California' for the whole U.S. West Coast. In fact as England is
Britain's Southeast lobe and Scotland its Northwest one, and the Hebrides
are in Scotland's Northwest corner, they are far indeed from England -
further than all of Belgium and much of northern France.
(3) These chessmen are not the only link between Chess, walruses, and the
name Lewis. The second of Lewis Carroll's Alice books features the Walrus
and the Carpenter, and in the array at the start the Walrus is on square
c8, highly appropriate for a tusker. The Carpenter is next door on b8,
reflecting that in lathe-turned sets Knights require the most post-turning
craftsmanship.

Andrew Dunn wrote on Sun, Apr 27, 2003 01:19 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
A couple of other points of information. On the island of Lewis itself, the
chess pieces are known as the 'Uig Chessmen'. Uig being the name of the
peninsular with the beach where the chessmen were found.

The pieces are now kept in the British Museum in London where they are
usually on display (but not always?). The museum gift shop sells several
versions of reproduction chess sets based on casts of the original
pieces.

I think it is not quite acurate to say they are a 'complete set of
chessmen'. In fact the pieces appear to come from four incomplete sets.
There are four styles of king for example. However the pieces are similar
enough that a complete set can be constructed.

Also the pieces are now almost all ivory white, most of the red colouring
of the 'black' pieces having been lost through poor conservation. The
carving is still very fine however.

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, May 4, 2003 08:41 AM UTC:
I was intrigued at the reference to Uig, as the only Uig that I had heard
of was a port in NW Skye giving access to Harris, a southern peninsula of
Lewis. Examination of a map revealed that Lewis also had an Eye peninsula
and an unnamed peninsula dominated by the village of Aird Uig. Presumably
this last is the Uig peninsula. Note that a 'peninsular' is a native or
resident of a peninsula.
	The news that the colour has faded is no surprise, as the Elgin Marbles
arrived at the British Museum similarly age-worn, as it was in lifelike
colours and surrounded by columns in Legoesque primaries. One can only
wonder what kind of chess sets would have been made if this tradition of
tinted sculpture had still been going when Chess reached Europe!

ST wrote on Tue, Aug 12, 2003 08:21 PM UTC:
I saw an Isle of Lewis set that had a castle for a rook. Does anyone know more about this?

Skye wrote on Tue, Aug 12, 2003 08:27 PM UTC:
I got an Isle of Lewis set. You might want to know that the black pawns are different. They are more round and have several sides. You may also see several little different things like the black king has a beard but the white one doesn't.

📝Tony Quintanilla wrote on Tue, Aug 12, 2003 09:04 PM UTC:
The Isle of Lewis chessmen found comprised parts of several chess sets. The sets commercially distributed appear to use a few of these pieces for their molds. Different sets seem to use a different selection of pieces, such as a tower or a soldier for the Rook. Or the same set may use different pawns or kings for white and black. Basically, selection of pieces that will comprise a set is somewhat arbitrary. If you like the set provided, that's what counts.

sh1n0b1 wrote on Thu, Dec 18, 2003 03:05 AM UTC:
Tony Where can you buy the molds do you know because im interested in purchasing one thank you

Anonymous wrote on Wed, Mar 10, 2004 05:58 PM UTC:
The Isle of Lewis is not an 'English Island' it is in Scotland, a different country to England.

Charles Gilman wrote on Wed, Jun 16, 2004 07:48 AM UTC:
Variation among the sets found at Lewis were only the tip of the iceberg as
regards far northern sets generally. Some had the King and Queen on
horseback (though still distinguished from the Knight by their crowns).
Towards the end of the Middle Ages the Queen was further distinguished by
being depicted side-saddle.
	Regarding the England/Scotland question the DISCOVERY site of the Lewis
men is in Scotland, but most of them are now KEPT in England (where the
British Museum is) although a few remain in Scotland.

Anonymous wrote on Sun, May 22, 2005 05:43 AM UTC:Poor ★
The Hebrides Islands, of which Lewis is one, are part of Scotland, not England.

rossco wrote on Fri, Jun 1, 2007 11:18 PM UTC:
i think that the rook and thge bishop are confused becuase the rook should be a strong piece with a solid base like th eking and queen

M Winther wrote on Sat, Jun 2, 2007 07:08 AM UTC:
But they are amazingly beautiful, carved by a 13th century(?) Norwegian craftsman. One can buy plaster cast sets of these and use stone plaster to create perfect replicas (in reality they are made of some form of bone).
/Mats

John Ayer wrote on Sun, Jun 3, 2007 01:20 AM UTC:
I think that the piece labeled a bishop is actually a bishop, because it wears a miter, as a bishop does, and carries a pastoral staff, as a bishop does.

Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Jun 3, 2007 02:03 AM UTC:
rossco, John is certainly right about the bishop. But notice he said nothing about the rook. I've always felt the piece labelled 'rook' is actually a pawn, or, at the very least, should be. It is a footsoldier with a shield, smaller than all the other pieces. It has none of the features of what we associate with the modern rook, that is, a castle or tower; nor does it have any of the features of the original 'rukh', a chariot. It has all the features we associate with pawns. They will tell us that the large shield the footsoldier holds represents a curtain wall or other fixed defense, thus by analogy is a tower or castle. But if I were to create a chess set from my set of the Lewis pieces, I'd make a new, tower piece for the rook, and use that footsoldier piece as the pawn, personally. What they call a pawn in the illustration looks to me like a piece from a smaller, cruder set, and not at all like it belongs with the first 5 pieces.

📝Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sun, Jun 3, 2007 05:25 AM UTC:

This page was originally meant to simply present some images that could be used with Zillions of Games. Here are some other links that may be of interest:


M Winther wrote on Sun, Jun 3, 2007 06:30 AM UTC:
The pawns in the Lewis set are actually runic stones, easily identifiable for us living in Scandinavia. In Sweden we see them everywhere in the landscape, and sometimes they have been inserted in the foundation of old churches. They typically have a dragon ornament with runes on it. 
/Mats

M Winther wrote on Sun, Jun 10, 2007 05:51 AM UTC:
I discovered that one can buy the Lewis chess pieces, at £98.95, here:
http://www.chessbaron.co.uk/chess-TH2001.htm
They are made of crushed stone. There is no stone board. But in the plaster cast set it's possible to make an attractive stone plaster board.
Marilyn Yalom ('Birth of the Chess Queen: A History') says that the set is from around 1200 when the Norwegians ruled the Isle of Lewis.
/Mats

John Ayer wrote on Wed, Jun 13, 2007 03:35 AM UTC:
They also offer at http://www.chessbaron.co.uk/chess-TH2002.htm a chess set based on Isle of Lewis pieces with a tower as rook and with the berserkers reduced to about half size to serve as pawns.

thylda wrote on Sun, Jun 17, 2007 09:05 PM UTC:Poor ★
that is sheer ignorance in my book! even if most of the pieces are in london does not make them english. they are hebridean found and scandinavian made and should be back in scotland.

ShuShu wrote on Sun, Jun 17, 2007 09:32 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
I can understand why you are angry at the book, but why did you give the page a Poor rating ?

📝Tony Quintanilla wrote on Mon, Jun 18, 2007 04:13 AM UTC:
I have revised the page, changing the attribution from the 'English Isle of Lewis' to the 'Scottish Isle of Lewis.'

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Apr 19, 2009 06:41 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
I carefully avoid rating this page in my earlier comments while the error was in place - there was no 'Average' at that time - but with it corrected the page deserves a higher rating. I hope that thos ewho previously rated it 'poor' will also reappraise the page.

Charles Gilman wrote on Sat, Jun 26, 2010 06:16 AM UTC:
Here's a heads-up for those living in Britain or otherswise able to access B.B.C. Radio 4. Sorry for the short notice but it was announced only last night. On Monday 28th June at 9:45, and repeated at 19:45, the Lewis Chessmen are the 'object' in that day's edition of A History of the World in 100 Objects. More detail here.

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