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II.—Early Chessmen of Whale's Bone excavated in Dorset

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

O.M. Dalton
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Extract

The very interesting chessmen illustrated on pls. v and vi were found during excavations carried out by Mrs. McGeagh at Witchampton Manor about five miles NNW of Wimborne. The work revealed the foundations of buildings regarded as mainly of medieval origin, though a British fibula and a quantity of Roman pottery, chiefly in fragments, have also come to light.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 77 , 1928 , pp. 77 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1928

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References

page 77 note 1 The larger of the two is itself composed of two fragments which undoubtedly belong together.

page 77 note 2 The large Indian ‘King’ in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris is inscribed on the base with the maker's name in Cufic characters, but the inscription is inconspicuous and the piece much later. For this King see Goldschmidt, A., Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der romanischen Zeit, vol. iv (Berlin, 1926)Google Scholar, fig. 6 on p. 5; Murray, H. J. R., A History of Chess (Oxford, 1913), p. 87Google Scholar.

page 78 note 1 A. Goldschmidt, as above, pp. 4–8.

page 79 note 1 All these developments are explained in Mr. H. J. R. Murray's History of Chess, already cited, a book indispensable to those interested in the subject.

page 80 note 1 The photograph and measurements have been kindly supplied by our Hon. Fellow M. Jean J. Marquet de Vasselot, of the Museum of the Louvre. The Chatenois pieces are small, the largest only measuring two inches in height. A single zoomorphic projection occurs on a ‘knight’ found in Normandy, recently in private possession in that province.

page 80 note 2 Goldschmidt, as above, pl. Lxix, no. 232 b.

page 80 note 3 W. G. Collingwood, F.S.A., ‘Anglian and Anglo-Danish Sculpture in the West Riding’, Yorkshire Arch. Journal, xxiii, p. 255.

page 80 note 4 Lindisfarne Gospels, Ruthwell Cross, Hartlepool ‘pillow-stones’, gold ring of Buredruth, etc.

page 81 note 1 These are conveniently brought together in the Romilly Allen MSS. in the British Museum, vol. xlii (Inscribed Stones, England), Add. MS. 37580. The volume contains cuttings from archaeological papers, and various illustrations, references being given.

page 81 note 2 Romilly Allen Coll., as above, no. 745.

page 81 note 3 Ibid., nos. 587 ff.

page 81 note 4 Ibid., no. 594.

page 81 note 5 Ibid., no. 642.

page 81 note 6 Ibid., no. 738.

page 81 note 7 Ibid., no. 616.

page 81 note 8 Ibid., no. 578.

page 81 note 9 By Mr. H. S. Kingsford.

page 82 note 1 A suggestion of early date is given by the small circle with a central dot seen at the bottom of the band of ornament on the back of the ‘bishop’ (pl. v, fig. i). Though such circles may occur at any period, they were especially popular in England belore the twelfth century, and are common on the bone draughtsmen and chessmen ascribed to the eleventh.

page 82 note 2 Murray, Hist. of Chess, p. 167. Ducas, whose History dates from about a. d. 1400, is a late authority; but it may fairly be assumed that the σαντράτζ of his time descended from a word similar in sound, representing the earliest Persian version of the Hindu term.

page 82 note 3 Murray, p. 395.

page 82 note 4 The word scac was a corruption of the Persian Shāh (= king).

page 83 note 1 Jacob, G., Der Nordisch-baltische Handel der Araber im Mittelalter, Leipzig, 1887Google Scholar, and Der Einfluss des Morgenlands auf das Abendland, vornehmlich während des Mittelalters, Hanover, 1924; T. J. Arne, La Suède et l'Orient (vol. viii of Archives d'études orientates, published by J. A. Lundell), Upsala, 1914Google Scholar; see also the references given in Cambridge Mediaeval History, iii, p. 624, section 6, and for general facts B. Pares, A History of Russia, 1926, pp. 17 ff.

page 84 note 1 History of Chess, p. 402.

page 84 note 2 Mr. Murray thinks that Cnut may have played chess at Rome in 1027 and after his return (pp. 420, 443), but that better evidence for the playing of chess in pre-Norman times may be found in the names used for the bishop in the ‘Winchester poem’ in the Bodleian (early twelfth century) and in Alexander Neckam's De naturis Rerum, ch. 184, De scaccis; these names (calvus, senex) suggest early Italian and German parallels.

page 85 note 1 It is of course well known that in representations of chess players in mediaeval MSS. schematic pieces are the rule. But these pieces are clearly small, as they are used on boards of ordinary size, and the schematization is less crude than that with which we are concerned. It may also be the case that there was a convention in the painting of chessmen, formal types being far easier to depict on a minute scale than realistic; it is remarkable that the medieval chessmen which have come down to us in the West are almost all naturalistic in treatment.

page 85 note 2 Whale's bone was occasionally used in later times when a large flat surface was required. But as a general rule its employment suggests an earlier date than the twelfth century, at which period the supply of morse ivory, a far finer material, was abundant.