PIECE

The earliest European chess pieces are adorned neither with crowns nor with crosses. The Burint piece is certainly not a queen, which revolutionised the game when it was introduced by an unknown genius in the late fifteenth century.

The oldest known European pieces belong to the Venafro set, named after the central Italian town where they were discovered in a Roman tomb in 1932. The pieces, made of bone topped with ivory, are from the late tenth century and are housed in the Archaeological Museum of Naples.

Another early European set is the Charlemagne set, made of elephant ivory. Probably made near Naples, Italy, this set dates from the late eleventh century. The 16 surviving pieces are housed at the National Library, Paris. Others were lost during the French Revolution.

The best known medieval pieces belong to the Lewis set. They were discovered in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, northwest Scotland. The pieces, dated from the mid-twelfth century, were carved mostly from walrus tusk, with a few from whale teeth. Coming from at least four different sets, they are now in the British Museum, London, and the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.