The Lewis Chessmen: Walrus Ivory, Norway and the British Museum

Lewis chessmen

Twelfth-century chess pieces (probably 1150–1200), in walrus ivory and a few in whale’s tooth, found in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis (Outer Hebrides, Scotland). They come from several sets and are thought to have been carved in Scandinavia, probably in Trondheim, Norway.

The Lewis chessmen: a discovery of 1831

In 1831, on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, a hoard came out of the sand: 93 objects, including 78 chess pieces, 14 tables men (for a game close to backgammon) and a belt buckle. Tradition places the discovery near Uig Bay; researchers at National Museums Scotland now consider the place called Mealista, some ten kilometres further south, more probable. The name of the man said to have found them appears in the sources only in 1863. The exact circumstances, and the reason why the pieces were buried there, remain unknown.

The hoard was sold and divided as early as the nineteenth century. The British Museum acquired 82 objects; the remaining 11 pieces joined the Scottish collections and are now in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

What are the Lewis chessmen made of?

Most are carved from walrus ivory, that is, from the tusks of this animal of the Arctic seas, which medieval Scandinavians hunted or obtained through trade. A few pieces are cut from whale’s teeth. This dense, creamy white material lends itself to fine carving: the folds of the clothing, the braids and the patterns of the thrones are of great precision. Some pieces still bore traces of red staining when they were found: the two sides were probably distinguished by colour, and not by today’s black and white.

Who carved them?

The style of the pieces, and notably the decoration of the thrones, recalls Scandinavian Romanesque art. The hypothesis most often accepted is a workshop in Trondheim, a great city of medieval Norway; other researchers propose Iceland, or even local manufacture in the Hebrides, then attached to the Norse world (the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles). The debate has not been settled. The number of pieces and their differences in size show in any case that they belong to several incomplete sets.

The figures of the game

Unlike modern pieces, the Lewis pieces are true small sculptures. Counting the piece found in 2019, 79 are known:

The bishops, shown as prelates holding their croziers, illustrate how the piece took on a religious meaning in Europe. The rooks, shown as standing warders, have nothing of the modern crenellated tower; four of them, wide-eyed, bite their shields like the berserkers of the Scandinavian sagas.

The piece found in 2019

In July 2019, a warder (a rook) unknown to specialists was sold at Sotheby’s in London for £735,000. According to the auction house, an Edinburgh antiques dealer had bought it in 1964 for £5 without identifying it; his daughter had then kept it for years in a drawer. Several pieces of the original hoard are still missing.

Why are the Lewis chessmen so important?

• Their rarity: few medieval chess sets have come down to us so complete.
• Their historical testimony: they show how the game, which came from the East, adapted to European feudal society, with a king, a queen and a bishop.
• Their artistic quality: the expressiveness of the faces and the fineness of the details make them masterpieces of Romanesque ivory carving.
• Their role as an icon: they have become a symbol of Scotland and of chess, widely reproduced.

Where can you see the Lewis chessmen?

• British Museum, London: the greater part of the hoard (82 objects).
• National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh: 11 pieces.
• Museum nan Eilean, at Lews Castle, Stornoway (Isle of Lewis): six pieces from the British Museum have been on loan there since 2015.

The two major museums publish detailed notices and photographs of each piece in their online collections databases, which can be consulted free of charge.

Figurines and reproductions

Their success has given rise to numerous reproductions, in resin, wood or materials that imitate ivory, often at the scale of the originals, most of which measure between about 7 and 10 cm. These sets are chiefly decorative: the pieces, very close to one another in silhouette, are less legible than Staunton pieces for a real game. Le Palais des Échecs devotes an article to its reproductions of the Isle of Lewis chess sets and presents a complete Isle of Lewis set, board included, for anyone who wants to see them for themselves. For the other old styles, see our page on historical styles.

A game with different rules

Twelfth-century players were not quite playing the chess we know. The piece we call the queen, often named “fers” in Old French, moved only one square diagonally; the bishop, then called the “alfil”, jumped two squares diagonally. Games were therefore much slower. The modern moves of the queen and the bishop only became established at the end of the fifteenth century, in Southern Europe. The Lewis chessmen thus bear witness to an early state of the game, at the very moment when it was taking on a feudal look in Europe: the queen is a seated queen, the bishop a prelate, the rook a warrior.

This slowness also explains the form of the pieces: on a board where play went on for a long time, the object counted as much as the game. Prestige sets were signs of rank, given or handed down, and their material, walrus ivory, came from the Arctic edges of the Norse world.

Recognising a good reproduction

Serious reproductions follow the proportions and expressions of the originals, published in detail by the museums. Look at the faces, often simplified on cheap copies, the details of the thrones (interlace, arcading) and the difference in shade between the two sides: one of the two armies is often stained reddish brown, echoing the traces of colour observed on some original pieces. A stable base and felt are essential if you really want to play, because the silhouettes, broad at the top, are less stable than a Staunton.

Sources: British Museum (collections database), National Museums Scotland, Wikipedia (en): Lewis chessmen, Sotheby’s (July 2019 sale).