New clues set archeologists on hunt for 'lost' Lewis chessmen

Published on Tuesday 10 November 2009 21:30

LEADING Scottish archeologists are to launch a hunt for a collection of up to 40 "missing" Lewis chessmen after new research rocked long-held assumptions about when and where they were found.

A wide-ranging investigation of the famous carved figures, led by National Museums of Scotland, suggests they were found several miles south of their presumed discovery site in the sand dunes at Uig.

NMS expert Dr David Caldwell and his co-authors on the study will now seek funding to begin excavating the site at Malasta, where the chessmen may have been buried in a souterrain, or underground passage.

The research – published in the journal Medieval Archeology and the most detailed since the figures surfaced in the early 19th century – suggests the chessmen would be better known as "gaming pieces" as they may have been used in such other board games as hnefatfl.

Popular in the Scandinavian world, it uses a similar board to chess, but with one player trying to break out with his king and the other bidding to trap him.

The new research also argues that the hoard could have belonged to a local leader, such as a bishop or clan chief, resident in Scotland – rather than left by a passing merchant, as has long been surmised. It cites one 13th -century poem, for example, describing how Angus Mor of Isla, called king of Lewis and the first Macdonald, inherited ivory pieces from his father.

Dr Caldwell yesterday compared the chessmen to a "big games compendium", the kind of boxed set you might buy at Christmas.

The widely accepted story of the chessmen is that they were found in 1831 in a stone kist in a dune by a local man, Malcolm Macleod. But earlier ordnance survey records of local place names say the find was at Malasta.

The 93 pieces found – 11 are held by the NMS and the rest reside in the British Museum – appear to come from four sets that could have run to 128 pieces, Dr Caldwell said.

"The explanation is the finder picked up the pieces which were basically complete and probably ignored bits in pieces," he said.

Dr Caldwell and one of his co-writers, Mark Hall, of the Perth Museum, are in early discussion on how to put a team together to explore for possible Iron Age souterrains.

"Most people have gone to the sands at Uig, which is pretty fruitless," Dr Caldwell said.

"Ivory is an extremely tough material and it is not altogether impossible that they might turn up."

The research will feature in a major touring exhibition of the Lewis chessmen in Scotland next year. They are carved from walrus ivory and whales' teeth, probably in Scandinavia in the late 12th century.