Nº 064 · See
A kingdom on sixty-four squares
A chessboard has just sixty-four squares, but the Lewis Chessmen give its miniature world an extraordinary cast. Explore these medieval carved figures through the British Museum’s account of their enduring appeal. The number belongs to the board on which chess is played, not to the surviving hoard.
- Why this number?
- The 64 squares of a chessboard—not the number of surviving Lewis pieces.
- Credit
- Lewis chessman, seated king. Photograph: National Museums Scotland, via Wikimedia Commons (NMSLewisChessmen3.jpg), CC BY-SA 4.0. Interpretation linked from the British Museum.
- Original source
- Visit British Museum ↗
- Reuse and attribution
- Photograph © National Museums Scotland, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NMSLewisChessmen3.jpg . Image unchanged; display scaling only. Terms
- Published
- 2026-09-30T21:51:33.166Z
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