The Isle of Lewis Chessmen: Viking Influence Beyond the Viking Age

Discovery

On one account, it is said that the Isle of Lewis Chessmen were discovered in 1831, partially buried in Uig Bay, on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis (in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland) by one Malcolm Macleod who had tracked a cow that had strayed from the herd. As luck would have it, he happened upon a partially buried stone case containing the chessmen along with a number of other gaming pieces.

However, the veracity of this account is contested and the actual discovery story of the pieces remains a mystery. Another account has them being found in the ruins of a monastery and yet another in a souterrain (an Iron Age stone cellar).

What we do know is that they first appeared in Exhibit at the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1831 on the permission of one Roderick Rirrie.