A warrior chewing his shield is a difficult act to follow. So is a queen who appears to have heard quite enough nonsense for one afternoon. The Lewis chessmen are famous for faces that seem wonderfully human. Yet their most useful lesson for a detectorist might be hiding behind them. Before you decide what a find has to say, remember to look at the back.
A hoard with more questions than answers
The pieces entered the historical spotlight in 1831, when they were exhibited in Edinburgh. They are associated with Uig on the Isle of Lewis, but the discovery accounts disagree. National Museums Scotland cautions that neither the precise circumstances nor the findspot is securely understood. That uncertainty matters: a memorable discovery story is not necessarily a reliable excavation record.
The museum places their probable manufacture in Norway in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. Most were carved from walrus ivory; some use sperm-whale teeth. Similarities between their carved thrones and Norwegian church decoration help connect these small objects to a much wider artistic world. These details are explored in National Museums Scotlandâs account of the hoard.
Turn the royal chair around
In 2024, National Museums Scotland announced a new display allowing visitors to see the backs of ten of its pieces. That sounds like a modest museum adjustment. For anyone who enjoys unravelling an object, it is an invitation to start again. The expressive face is only one part of something designed and worked in three dimensions. See the museumâs announcement about the redisplay.
Imagine the difference between meeting a chessman in a head-on photograph and slowly circling it in a case. Your first glance asks who the figure represents. Your second can ask how the maker organised the surface, where ornament stops, and which details reward close attention. Those are different questions, and they can produce a different kind of appreciation.
Not one abandoned game
The museum describes a hoard of 93 pieces, including material from at least four chess sets and other games. Eleven belong to National Museums Scotland and 82 to the British Museum. Who buried them remains unknown. A travelling merchantâs stock is one possibility; the possessions of a powerful local owner are another. Neither explanation should be promoted from possibility to certainty simply because it makes a satisfying tale.
That distinction offers a useful habit for our own finds trays. Keep three separate headings in mind: what survives, what it resembles, and what you think happened. A worn object can support the first two while remaining stubbornly silent about the third. Mystery is not a flaw that needs filling with a dramatic owner.
A field habit worth borrowing
On your next permitted Kent or Sussex detecting outing, try giving an ordinary find the chessman treatment. Once it can be examined safely, photograph both faces and the edge, with a scale. Do not scrape away a fragile surface to make the picture clearer. Note what is genuinely visible before deciding which view deserves to be called the front.
Ask what your favourite photograph leaves out. Is an attachment visible only from the side? Does the reverse contradict the neat outline you noticed first? If the object is too delicate to reposition safely, leave it alone and seek specialist help. Looking carefully is the aim; forcing it to reveal an answer is not.
The Lewis chessmen were not a modern detector discovery, and an ivory figure is not a metal target. They belong in a detectoristâs imagination nevertheless. They remind us that discovery does not end when something comes out of the ground. Sometimes the next revealing move is simply changing your point of view. Even a king has a back worth looking at.