Tag: Norway

Lewis Chessmen Exhibition Opens in Edinburgh: Events to Look Out For

A reunion 180 years in waiting will occur this Friday in Edinburgh, as Lewis Chessmen pieces from north and south of the border are displayed side-by-side for the very first time at the National Museum of Scotland (NMS).

The exhibition (one of our top ten to look forward to worldwide this year) marks the arrival of a 20-piece sample of the ornate, ivory-carved 12th/13th century artefacts in Edinburgh on loan from the British Museum, and the beginning of a tour of the country that between now and September 2011 will visit Aberdeen, Shetland and finally Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, where the chessmen were discovered buried in a sand dune in 1831 then later split up and sold (read the full remarkable story of the Lewis Chessmen here).

Currently, the British Museum holds 82 pieces of the full collection of 93 which is believed to derive from at least four different sets, probably hand-crafted in Trondheim while the NMS holds the remaining 11.

Throughout the course of the exhibition in Edinburgh, the NMS has a programme of special events planned, allowing visitors to familiarise themselves with the history and saga of the enchanting gaming pieces, which represent probably the most famous archaeological discovery ever made in Scotland. They include workshops for kids, a medieval games weekend and an interdisciplinary seminar highlighting recent research into the origins, history and making of these iconic little figures.

Chess Piece Magician Workshops and Medieval Games Weekend

Sunday May 30 sees two free Lewis Chessmen-themed events for youngsters at the museum, both based around the book The Chess Piece Magician by author Douglas Bruton a fantasy adventure about a boy, Corrie, who finds a stray Chessman with magical properties while on holiday on Lewis, and gets drawn into a mystical battle between good and evil.

In the morning therell be a Chess Piece Magician Creative Workshop, where participants can meet the author and join in with creating their very own island adventure. In the afternoon therell be a drop-in session with Bruton, titled Meet the Author: The Chess Piece Magician, where fans of the book can bring their copy along to get signed.

Saturday June 12-Sunday June 13 is Medieval Games Weekend at NMS, where budding chess champions will be invited to face-off against one another across a checkered board, or simply sit back and watch some chess masters at work. More adventurous gamers can try their hand at Hnefatafl a chess-like ancient Viking game, popular in Scandinavia in the medieval period, which similarly involved protecting a king from marauding opponent pieces. Experts have speculated that the Lewis Chessmen may even be Hnefatafl pieces rather chessmen. Decide for yourself while pitting your wits against other competitors in the centuries-old contest of skill and maneuver.

Unmasking the Lewis Chessmen

The main event of the Lewis Chessmen events series at the National Museum of Scotland is Unmasking the Lewis Chessmen a day long colloquium on the 11th September that will gather and discuss ideas and opinions on the artefacts from a variety of perspectives: historical, anthropological, archaeological, artistic and cultural.

Itll begin with a talk by the NMSs Keeper of Scotland and Europe David H. Caldwell, titled The Lewis Chessmen their place in the Kingdom of the Isles. Dr Heather Pulliam, a lecturer in the History of Art department at the University of Edinburgh will then talk The Lewis Chessmen: Art and Avatar, before Dr Caroline Wilkinson, Senior Lecturer in Facial Anthropology at the University of Dundee, presents her Facial Analysis of the Chess Pieces the use of forensic science techniques for archaeological investigation.

The Norwegian Empire, Fantasy or Fact? by the University of St Andrews School of Historys Alex Woolf is the penultimate afternoon session. Mark A Hall, History Officer at Perth Museum & Art Gallery will conclude with To you he left his brown ivory chessmen, Ships, play and cultural value in the Lewis gaming hoard, before the floor is opened to questions and discussion.

Considering that there have been vehement calls in recent years from Scottish Nationalist politicians for the British Museums quota of the Lewis Chessmen to be repatriated permanently with one minister describing the loan agreement as a step sideways in the debate the conversation should be lively.

Face-off: King Tut’s Senet Board ‘v’ Lewis Chessmen

Touching Rosetta

In the age of video games, board games might not be the popular pastime they once were. But they have a venerable history.

Board games originate thousands of years ago as a spare-time preoccupation of the upper-castes of civilizations from South America to China, Egypt and northern Europe.

Each ancient civilization had their own board game of choice. In the Egyptians case it was senet, a complex contest of chance that dating from as long ago as 3500 BC represents the oldest board game in history. The most famous senet board yet discovered comes from the tomb of the legendary pharaoh Tutankhamun. Made of gorgeous hand-carved ivory with ebony veneers and fittings, its arguably the finest example of a board game ever found.

Its closest rival is the Lewis Chessmen a set of 93 chess pieces of Norse origin, also individually hand-carved from ivory. Dating from the 12th century AD, they were found on the Scottish island of Lewis, and may be the only complete medieval examples in existence of what would one day become one of the worlds most popular and enduring board games.

Which will be the first to bring its opponent to checkmate in a head-to-head? Decide for yourself as we pit these two beautiful board game artefacts against one another in a face-off.

King Tut’s Senet Board

King Tutankhamun's Senet Board. Image Copyright - Sandro Vannini.

Senet was more than just a game to the ancient Egyptians it was a matter of life and death. Great believers in determinism, the Egyptians came to regard senet boards as talismans for the journey of the dead, because of the element of luck involved in playing the game, which revolved around the throwing of knucklebones or casting sticks.

Successful players were believed to be protected by powerful gods such as Ra, Thoth and Osiris, and the game is even mentioned in the Book of the Dead. Their senet boards were often placed in their graves when they died, among various other handy tools for usage on the treacherous road to the afterlife.

Tutankhamun was buried with four different senet boards evidently he enjoyed playing the game a great deal. Some of them were for ceremonial purposes, others were for day-to-day usage. The ivory board dating from 1333 BC and found by Howard Carter, among the many other spectacular treasures of Tuts tomb, in 1922 was the most beautiful of the lot.

Small and portable, with various highly personal design flourishes, it may have been the very set that King Tut used to sit down with of a warm summers evening to play against his queen Ankhesenamun. On one end, it bears a roughly-carved image of a seated Tutankhamun, with Ankhesenamun standing facing him, holding a lotus flower.

Designed as a box, the board contains a small drawer in which the senet pieces two ivory knuckle-bones, five red ivory reels and five white ivory pawns were kept. The drawer was originally fastened by bolts, but these are sadly missing. Carter speculated that the bolts were probably made out of silver and gold, and were possibly stolen by grave robbers.

Various inscriptions filled with yellow pigment are etched into the sides of the box, all of them immodestly proclaiming Tuts greatness. One reads: The Strong Bull, beautiful of birth, image of Ra, precious offspring of Atum, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, ruler of the nine bows, lord of all the lands, and possessor of might Nebkheperura.

Around the drawer, Tut is described as The good god, lord of the Two Lands, lord of crowns whom Ra created and Beloved of all the gods, may he be healthy, living forever. No wonder he liked it so much!

The whole thing is mounted on an ebony stand in the form of a bed frame, with feline paws resting on gilded drums. The drums themselves were attached to an ebony sledge. Senet was played on a board of 30 squares; on the reverse side of the box is a second board, of 20 squares, which was used for playing a different game called tjau, which would appear to translate as robbers.

Nobody can be sure exactly how either senet or tjau was played, although some historians have made educated guesses, and sets are manufactured, sold and played-upon today. Theyre but a mere shadow of Tutankhamuns favourite senet board, however, which can be viewed in all its splendour at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Plus Points:

  • The finest existing set of the oldest board game in history.
  • Once a prized and frequently used possession of a world-famous Egyptian royal.
  • Theres a tjau board on the reverse. Two games in one bonus!

Let-downs:

  • No one can be sure how to play Senet.
  • Some parts may have been stolen by tomb robbers.

Lewis Chessmen

The Lewis Chessmen. Image by Rebecca Thompson.

Its worth noting first of all that the Lewis Chessmen might be misleadingly-titled. According to recent research by a trio of Scottish heritage experts, the pieces may actually have been used to play Hnefatafl a medieval Scandinavian warfare game not dissimilar to chess, but contested on a bigger board with more pieces.

Whatever they were used for, it makes no difference as to the artefacts quality, which is indisputable. Individually scratched and chiseled out of walrus tusks and whales teeth by highly-skilled artisans in Trondheim, the capital of Norway until 1217, the Lewis Chessmen eight kings, eight queens, 16 bishops, 15 knights, 12 rooks and 19 pawns are totally distinctive. Their weirdly contorted, wide-eyed and melancholic faces are humorous and enchanting. Their enigmatic origins and complex and controversial history gives them an air of mystery and drama.

Many stories exist as to how and why the chessmen were deposited on Lewis, where they were found hidden inside a sandbank at the head of the Bay of Uig by crofter Malcolm Sprot Macleod, from nearby Pennydonald, in 1831.

One fanciful local myth has it that they were stolen from an unknown ship sheltering in the bay by an escaping cabin boy, who swam ashore, before being murdered by an onlooker and concealed in the bluff. More likely they were either lost or abandoned on the island by a passing Norse merchant, or were the prize possession of a wealthy local king, lord or bishop.

After their discovery, the Lewis Chessmens story immediately becomes a complex and slightly confusing one. Following their purchase by a disreputable antiquities dealer called TA Forrest, 82 of the pieces were sold to the British Museum in London, while another 10 were secretly kept in reserve.

These 10 chessmen changed hands a number of times with another single piece, a bishop, mysteriously added to the set at some stage before all 11 were eventually sold to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, who finally donated them to the Royal Museum of Scotland (part of the modern National Museum of Scotland). The chessmen today remain divided into two separate collections, owned by two different museums, in London and Edinburgh.
Calls have been made in recent years for the British Museum to return their quota of the Lewis Chessmen to Scotland, to allow the full set to be reunited on Lewis. The British Museum have resisted the Chessmen after all represent one of their most popular and precious exhibits. But they have conceded to a temporary loan of a handful of pieces, for a tour of Scotland through 2010 and 2011, alongside the National Museum of Scotlands 11 chessmen, which will visit Lewis among other destinations.

Not all of the Lewis Chessmen may have yet been discovered. There have been calls for new excavations on the island, to see if as many as 35 missing pieces may still be hidden there somewhere.

Plus Points:

  • Perhaps the only surviving medieval sets of one of the worlds most popular and enduring board games.
  • Beautiful and enchanting craftsmanship.
  • An intriguingly mysterious story full of myth and controversy.

Let-downs:

  • You need to visit two different museums, in two different countries, to view all of the chessmen.
  • They may not actually be chessmen.
  • Some pieces are missing.

Which game wins? Let us know your favourite below, and email us directly to organise a face-off including your favourite artefact.

Lewis Chessmen May Be From a Different Board Game

The Lewis Hnefataflmen: doesnt quite have the same ring to it as the Lewis Chessmen, does it?

But if what a new paper by a trio of heritage experts is saying is true, the famous 900-year-old set of ivory-carved pieces discovered on a Scottish island in 1831 may not be from a chess set at all, but rather an ancient Viking board game.

The study also questions the popular notion of how the hoard came to end up on Lewis, and calls for new excavations at a site near to where they were reportedly found.

Hnefatafl, which was popular in Scandinavia in the medieval period, probably wasnt too dissimilar to chess it was also a warfare game that involved protecting a king from marauding opponent pieces. But it was likely played on a larger board (1313 squares, or 1111), and may have involved rolling dice in some way (the game rules were never properly recorded, and no full set survives today). The new study suggests that the artefacts would be best referred to as gaming pieces from here forth.

A Royal Hoard?

Elsewhere in their paper which is set to be published in the journal Medieval Archaeology this week David Caldwell from the National Museum of Scotland, Mark Hall of Perth Museum and Caroline Wilkinson a forensic anthropologist from Dundee University raise doubts over the traditional theory that the gaming pieces arrived on Lewis because they were left there, buried in a sand dune, by a Norwegian merchant.

One of the main things I think we are saying in our research is that it is much more likely that the hoard is in Lewis because it belonged to somebody who lived there rather than being abandoned by a merchant who was passing through, Caldwell told BBC News. He speculated that they could have easily belonged to a wealthy local king or lord or bishop, who really valued playing chess and saw it as being one of their accomplishments.

Opening Up The Debate

He hopes that their hypotheses will open up some new conversation on the nature and origins of the artefacts, which are set to be reunited in Scotland for the first time in over 150 years in 2010. I would be very disappointed if we have written the last word on them, said Caldwell, what I hope we have done is opened up the debate and shown it is possible, even with something very well known, to discover new things.

I hope we have opened up the debate and shown it is possible, even with something very well known, to discover new things. — Dr David Caldwell

Currently, the collection is divided between the National Museum of Scotland who own 11 pieces and the British Museum, who possess the other 82. The thorny issue of repatriation has been raised by the Scottish Government in recent years, but for the time being at least put to bed by a loan agreement, which will see a small selection of the pieces head north for a tour of Scotland over the next couple of years.

Caldwell et als study was wide-ranging, and the first to examine the artefacts in detail in a bid to work out which were made by the same groups of artists. They measured the faces, looked at their clothing, and studied details of the workmanship. They confirmed that the figures are of Scandinavian origin and were very likely made by master craftsmen at the Norwegian city of Trondheim, but admitted that much more remains to be learned about the pieces.

A New Excavation?

Caldwell also pointed out that a large proportion of the hoard is still missing the 93 pieces found may derive from as collection of as many as 128. He and his associates now intend to pursue funding for an investigation at Malasta on Lewis a souterrain, or underground passage, which some maps from the time suggest is the real spot where the chessmen were found, rather than the sand dunes at Uig, as is popularly believed.

Most people have gone to the sands at Uig, which is pretty fruitless, he told Caldwell the Scotsman in another interview. Ivory is an extremely tough material and it is not altogether impossible that they might turn up.

Read more about the complex and mysterious story of the Lewis Chessmen sorry, gaming pieces here.

Its been a busy few days for Dr Caldwell, who last week was also representing the Treasure Trove Unit at National Museum of Scotland in connection with the discovery of a 1 million horde of ancient gold treasure near Stirling.

Checkmate: Lewis Chessmen Set To Return To Scotland On Loan

Scottish Minister for Culture Mike Russell is expected to announce today that the Lewis Chessmen a collection of 93 individually hand-carved walrus-ivory chess pieces dating from the 12th century, found on the Isle of Lewis in 1831 are to be reunited again. A proportion of the 82-piece set belonging to the British Museum in London will arrive home on loan, to join up with the 11 other artefacts currently held by the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Theyll go on tour around the country in coming months, taking in destinations including Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis.

The Lewis Chessmen are one of the British Museums most popular exhibits. The temporary return north of even a few pieces (at least 25, probably more) represents checkmate for the Scottish Government, who have been calling for the Chessmens full repatriation for a long time, and were preparing to lobby at Westminster. The agreement hammered out by museum bosses appears to be a compromise intended to head-off any potential debate over ownership. British Museum chiefs fear that repatriation might set a dangerous precedent for the return of other disputed items, such as the much-fought-over Elgin Marbles, Bust of Nefertiti and Rosetta Stone.

British Museum chiefs fear that repatriation might set a dangerous precedent for the return of other disputed items

The British Museums rights over the Lewis Chessmen are much stronger than they are over other controversial artefacts in their collection, such as the Elgin Marbles, which were taken from the Parthenon without clear permission by Thomas Bruce in the early 19th century (the Greeks still hope to get them back). The chess pieces werent plundered, but rather purchased for 80 guineas from a dealer in Edinburgh, who in turn had paid 30 for them himself.

Yet its believed that the Scottish Government which is pursuing a nationalist agenda, with the ultimate goal of Scottish independence from the rest of the United Kingdom wont drop their claim to repatriation altogether in the long term, and may yet make further calls for a permanent release.

Artefact repatriation is a sticky ethical subject its hard to determine who really owns centuries-old artefacts that changed hands in ages before any firm regulation of such exchanges was instituted.

The debate over the Lewis Chessmen is complicated further by the fact that the set is thought to be Scandinavian in origin, since it dates from a time when the Outer Hebrides were ruled by Norway. If the Scots think theyve got a right to the Chessmen, then couldnt a Norwegian claim too logically be made?

Picture by Simon Greig. Some rights reserved.

Blonde Bombshell: Scandinavians Descended From Stone Age Immigrants

If youre wondering where Scandinavians got their blonde hair and impressive bone structure from then you can tick hunter-gatherers who inhabited the region at the end of the Ice Age off your list. It seems that an immigrant people from the Eastern Baltic region, who drifted into modern Scandinavia in the Stone Age around the time of the advent of farming are the real genetic ancestors of modern Swedes, Danes and Norwegians and even the Saami people of northern Scandinavia, according to new research straddling the boundaries of genetics and archaeology.

The study, published recently in the journal Current Biology, is the work of groups from Sweden, Denmark and the UK, and is led by Anders Gtherstrm from the Department of Evolutionary Biology at Uppsala University and Eske Willerslev, of the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen.

It involved examining DNA from Stone Age remains to try and determine whether agricultural process were developed by hunter-gatherer communities the so-called Pitted-Ware culture themselves or brought in by new arrivals to the region, who co-existed beside Pitted-Ware people for a millennium until about 2000 BC. The evidence pointed firmly to population replacement by that stage. The hunter-gatherers who inhabited Scandinavia more than 4,000 years ago had a different gene pool than ours, stated Gtherstrm, speaking to ScienceDaily.

Our findings show that todays Scandinavians are not the direct descendants of the hunter-gatherers who lived in the region during the Stone Age.

Petra Molnar, at the Osteoarchaeological Research Laboratory at Stockholm University, concurred. Our findings show that todays Scandinavians are not the direct descendants of the hunter-gatherers who lived in the region during the Stone Age. This entails the conclusion that some form of migration to Scandinavia took place, probably at the onset of the agricultural Stone Age. The extent of this migration is as of yet impossible to determine.

The process by which humans populated the planet is being constantly revised, and this new finding may cause pre-historians to scribble out an extra line on their human migration map.

Picture by Candida.Performa. Some rights reserved.