Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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:

• Jean-Louis Cazaux's page on the pieces (he calls the 'Rook' a 'Warder'): http://history.chess.free.fr/lewis.htm
• Drawings of the pieces, along with other images about the locality where they were found: http://www.cne-siar.gov.uk/museum/gallery.htm
• British Museum page on the pieces (notice the teeth on that berserker 'Warder'): http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/explore/online_tours/britain/our_top_ten_british_treasures/the_lewis_chessmen.aspx
• Photo of the display at the British Museum (5th image from the top): http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~hyde/England2004/BritishMuseum4.html
• Page from the National Museums Scotland: http://www.nms.ac.uk/lewischesspieces.aspx
• Wikipedia page on the pieces: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_chessmen
• Phenomenal high resolution image (2.86 mb) of the Lewis King from the 2006 Auckland Museum Viking exhibition: http://www.aucklandmuseum.com/site_resources/Vikings/3_-_Lewis_chess_king.jpg

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

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

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.