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Lewis, Ardoil

Chess Piece(S) (Norse)

Site Name Lewis, Ardoil

Classification Chess Piece(S) (Norse)

Alternative Name(s) Uig Sands; Lewis Chessmen

Canmore ID 4058

Site Number NB03SW 5

NGR NB 042 323

NGR Description NB c.042 323

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/4058

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Digital Images

Administrative Areas

  • Council Western Isles
  • Parish Uig
  • Former Region Western Isles Islands Area
  • Former District Western Isles
  • Former County Ross And Cromarty

Archaeology Notes ( - 1969)

NB03SW 5 c.042 323

(Area: 042 323) Seventy-eight chessmen of walrus ivory fourteen ivory table-men or draught board pieces and a buckle were found in a small, subteranean stone building 'like an oven', which was uncovered in the spring of 1831, when the sea undermined and carried away a considerable portion of a sandbank in a wind swept gully in the sand at the SE base of Eornal (NB 041 324).

Though they are generally accepted as Scandinavian of the 12th century, Wilson argues in favour of their being Scottish-Norman of the same period, on the basis of their similarity to seals, sculptures etc. of that period. At least eight sets, none complete, were represented. Except for eleven chess-men, which are in National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS), all the pieces, including the buckle, are in the British Museum (See NB03SW 6 - possibly associated structure)

D Wilson 1863; British Museum 1968.

Now no trace of the "oven-like" building and no further information.

Visited by OS (R L) 28 June 1969.

Activities

Field Visit (8 July 1914)

Hut Circles (Eornal), Uig.

[NB03SW 6] In a windswept gully in the sand at the south-eastern base of Eornal, a small hill rising 50 feet above it, and about 400 yards south of the high-water mark on the southern shore of Uig Bay, is a hut circle, formed by a single curb of stones set on edge and measuring 17 feet in diameter internally. About 9 feet to the north-east are a few tumbled stones, apparently the remains of a small structure. Two saddle querns, a hammer-stone and a few fragments of pottery, together with some shells of cockles and limpets and animal bones, were got beside the hut circle.

[NB03SW 5] The 78 chessmen of walrus ivory (Fig. 14), of which eleven are preserved in the Scottish National Museum of Antiquities, while the others are in the British Museum, were found in this gully in 1831. In the British Museum also are the fourteen ivory tablemen or draught-board pieces and a buckle from the same hoard (cf. for detailed descriptions Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., Vol. xxiii., pp. 9-14). The articles were exposed by a cow rubbing itself against a sandhill.

Some 50 yards to the north-east of the hut circle are the remains of another.

RCAHMS 1928, visited 8 July 1914.

OS map: Lewis xxiii (unnoted).

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