The Lewis Chessmen

The famous Norse walrus-ivory chess pieces, found 1831

The Lewis chessmen are a hoard of 12th-century game pieces found in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, in the parish of Uig. Most accounts put the find beneath a sand dune at Uig Bay on the west coast, though National Museums Scotland researchers think Mealista, about 6 miles further south, more likely. The finder was long recorded only as a local peasant; his name first appears in 1863, as Malcolm MacLeod of Pennydonald. The hoard held about 79 chess pieces by the usual count, 14 tablemen for backgammon-like games and a belt buckle, nearly all carved from walrus ivory, a few from whale teeth.

They were probably made between 1150 and 1200, most often thought in Trondheim, Norway, though Icelandic and Hebridean workshops have been suggested, and probably came to Lewis as a merchant's stock. The pieces are 8 kings, 8 queens, 16 bishops, 15 knights, 13 warders and 19 pawns, enough for parts of at least four or five sets, and their faces fall into five groups that may be the work of five craftsmen. The kings sit enthroned, crowned and holding swords, the queens rest a hand against a cheek, the knights ride small horses, and four of the warders are wild-eyed berserkers biting their shields. Their bulging eyes and glum looks strike modern viewers as comic; the makers probably meant strength, ferocity and, in the queens, contemplation. Traces of mercury suggest the red pigment cinnabar once marked one side.

Roderick Ririe of Stornoway showed them to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland on 11 April 1831. He sold ten to the collector Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, and most of the rest went to the British Museum, which paid 80 guineas for 82 pieces; Sharpe's eventually reached the National Museum of Scotland, which holds 11. When found, a knight and four warders were already missing. One of those warders surfaced in 2019: an Edinburgh antiques dealer had bought it for £5 in 1964 without knowing what it was, and his family sold it at Sotheby's for £735,000.

The chessmen are among the biggest draws of both museums, have inspired everything from Noggin the Nog to a scene in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and have toured back to Lewis itself, shown at Museum nan Eilean in Stornoway and for a day at Uig Museum.