Lewis chess pieces

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Reproductions of the Lewis chess pieces.
Top row: King, Queen, Bishop (or Alfil); bottom row: knight, rook, pawn; below an enlarged representation of a queen

The Lewis chessmen ( engl. Lewis chessmen ) are a set of a total of 78 chessmen , 1831 at the Scottish Isle of Lewis , the largest island of the Western Isles , were discovered. They were believed to have been made in Norway and are considered to be the best preserved medieval game pieces. They are also an excellent example of Romanesque ivory carving .

Origins

The chess pieces were probably made in Norway in the second half of the 12th century , where similar pieces were discovered in Trondheim . At that time, the game of chess had spread from the Arab region to Europe via Sicily and Spain. Vikings , who traded extensively with the Arabs in the Mediterranean, brought the game of chess to Scandinavia early on. Chess pieces of Scandinavian origin from the 10th century were found in the Vosges, but they were still very similar to the Arab pieces. In the Lewis chess pieces on the other hand was Alfil , the previous figure of the rotor , already depicted as Bishop (the original shape was an elephant), then, include those figures to the first chess pieces Western type.

The Lewis chess pieces were made in the Romanesque style from the ivory of walruses and whale teeth . A total of 78 figures have survived to this day, belonging to four sets of figures, two of which are complete. A total of 8 kings , 8 queens , 16 bishops (Alfil / runner), 15 jumpers , 12 rooks and 19 pawns were found. With the exception of the pawns, which resemble landmarks , all of the pawns have human features. The kings and queens sit on thrones, the jumpers on horses. Clothing and weapons are shown in detail, the bishops are equipped with a crosier and a Bible. Some of the towers are depicted as berserkers , biting their shields with wild gaze. Most of the characters look at the game with a dismayed expression on their faces. The largest game pieces are the bishops, which are up to 4 inches high. Since some of the pieces were originally painted red, the chessboard must have been divided into white and red fields; a distinction between white and black was apparently not yet common at that time.

Discovery and exhibition

The story of the discovery is unclear, several legends and rumors are associated with it. The circumstances in which the characters came to the Isle of Lewis are also unknown. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Outer Hebrides , at whose northern end the Lewis lies, belonged to the Norwegian Empire. It is believed that the chess pieces were hidden by a Norwegian trader on the Isle of Lewis at the time.

The Lewis chess pieces were first presented on April 11, 1831, when they were exhibited at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland . There are no contemporary sources as to the exact time of their discovery, but the figures are believed to have been found in a small brick chamber in a sandbank in Uig Bay on the west coast of Lewis. Together with the chess pieces, 14 tabula game pieces and a belt buckle were found.

The collection of chess pieces was split up soon after the first exhibition. Ten figures were purchased from the painter Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, and 67 figures were purchased from the British Museum , where they are still on display today, for £ 84. Sharpe later found another piece and sold all eleven chess pieces to the collector Lord Londesborough. In 1888 these were acquired by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, which left them to the Royal Museum in Edinburgh (now the National Museum of Scotland ).

From an archaeological point of view, the Lewis chess pieces are considered the best preserved evidence of Nordic settlements in Scotland. The British Museum's collection in particular made the figures so popular. They are considered the most famous medieval characters and are available in various replicas. In the film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone , one of the chess pieces of the red queen from the Lewis collection is modeled on. A chess game based on Lewis' figures also plays an important role in the 2002 television film Beloved Thief .

  • Two Kings and Queens (British Museum)

  • A line of bishops in the background and a line of knights in front of them, in front a knight and some pawns.

  • A synthetic resin replica of one of the kings

  • Lewis Chess Pieces (Museum of Scotland)

In 2010 and 2011, the figures were exhibited together with other exhibits from the time they were made in several museums in Scotland (in Aberdeen , Lerwick on the Shetlands and Stornoway on Lewis) under the title The Lewis Chessmen Unmasked .

Discovery of a tower

In 2018 a family in Edinburgh discovered a figure in their home that had been believed lost since 1831. A grandfather of the current finder had acquired it as an antique dealer in 1964 for 5 pounds from another dealer and entered it in his ledger as "Antique Walrus Tusk Warrior Chessman" ( antique chess piece made of walrus ivory ) . Since then, the family knew of the existence of the figure, but their true identity could only be determined after an assessment at the Sotheby’s auction house at the end of 2018 . The piece - one of five that had disappeared - is a guard ("warden") with a helmet, sword and shield and is supposed to represent a tower according to today's understanding . The figure was auctioned at Sotheby's in London on July 2, 2019 for £ 735,000.

See also

literature

  • David H. Caldwell, Mark A. Hall, Caroline M. Wilkinson: The Lewis hoard of gaming pieces. A re-examination of their context, meanings, discovery and manufacture. In: Medieval archeology. 53, 1, 2009, ISSN  0076-6097 , pp. 155-203.
  • David H. Caldwell, Mark A. Hall, Caroline M. Wilkinson: The Lewis Chessmen Unmasked. The National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh 2010, ISBN 978-1-905267-46-0 .
  • James Robinson: The Lewis Chessmen. British Museum Press, London 2004, ISBN 0-7141-5023-1 .
  • Neil Stratford: The Lewis Chessmen and the Enigma of the Hoard. British Museum Press, London 1997, ISBN 0-7141-0587-2 .
  • Neil MacGregor : A History of the World in 100 Objects . Translated from the English by Waltraut Götting. Andreas Wirthensohn, Annabell Zettel, CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62147-5 , pp. 463-467.

Web links

Commons : Lewis Chess Pieces  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ian Armit: The Archeology of Skye and the Western Isles. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1996, ISBN 0-7486-0858-3 , p. 204.
  2. ↑ Rolf Schneider: Everyday Life in the Middle Ages. Life in Germany 1000 years ago. Bassermann, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-8094-1995-8 , p. 12.
  3. ^ HE Bird: Chess History And Reminiscences. Kessinger Publishing Co, Whitefish MT 2004, ISBN 1-4191-1280-5 .
  4. ^ Anna Ritchie: Viking Scotland. BT Batsford Ltd, London 2001, ISBN 0-7134-7225-1 .
  5. ↑ A universe in its own right and berserk from the island beach. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. of December 5, 2010, p. 69.
  6. ↑ Long-lost Lewis Chessman found in Edinburgh family's drawer on bbc.com (accessed June 3, 2019).
  7. ↑ Lewis chessmen piece bought for £ 5 in 1964 could sell for £ 1m on theguardian.com (accessed June 3, 2019).
  8. ↑ Simon Johnson: Lewis chess piece bought for £ 5 and kept in drawer sells for £ 735,000 . In: The Telegraph . July 2, 2019, ISSN  0307-1235 ( telegraph.co.uk [accessed July 3, 2019]).