Calls For Return Of Lewis Chess Set - Scotland Or Iom?

[Skeddan]

I don't wish to encourage trolls, but if our fishy friend wants to try his hand then consider the Norse ring money almost certainly dug up on the Island and now in the National Museum Dublin via a similar illegal sale

I don't wish to encourage 'Elginism' but there are many such artefacts which were illicitly sold and removed and which are now in the USA and other places. Dealing in illicit cultural property is gaining more attention, but there is relatively little visible enforcement. A high profile case whereby the British Museum might be required to return an illicitly bought item such as this would do a lot to help combat this and dampen the market.

[VinnieK]

VinnieK - the issue arose from the question of who might have a good legal claim to the chessmen: I made an argument that the BM might not have bona fide legal title to these. You made some very flippant comment. As far as I could gather you were mocking any suggestion that the legal ownership might be disputed - just as Hodge had done. The argument about where would be best is another matter - you were explicit about that - but not on the ownership issue. Your haven't been exactly clear in often sarcastic remarks on the ownership issue and it is often hard to understand what your view really is.

 

That is because, as I have suggested (indeed fairly recently) the issue of ownership is a red herring. The British Museum owns its collection, and the Society of Antiquities I believe owns their collection in Edinburgh - that is the situation as it presently stands. Contesting the legitimacy of this ownership is only meaningful if an alternative owner can be confirmed without any doubt (see my comment on your example of the Bishop). As it is we cannot determine original ownership, nor can we conclusively determine the intended destination of the pieces, and it is deeply unlikely that we ever will be in a position to do so. That they might have been heading to the Isle of Man, that they may have been intended for some particular worthy or noble (a deeply ostentatious one at that buying four chess sets) are not serious claims to ownership or where they belong - they are, indeed, nothing but supposition. You can challenge the existing arrangement, but without a practical alternative that has some weight behind it other than assumption and circumstantial guesswork, it is to no avail.

 

I am not saying that challenging the British Museum's ownership of the Chessmen is inherently wrong, but that given the meagre evidence for who or where they were intended, such a challenge fails to establish any claim firmer than that of the British Museum, or even so much as an equivalent claim given their discovery on UK soil. Given then that the British Museum can offer more in the way than can either the Island or Lewis when it comes to preservation and offering access to the British public, and given that they were purchased in the absence of any legitimate claim of ownership, the best decision is probably that they remain where they are.

 

I said it was 'from what I can gather' - you can always come in and clarify exactly what you are trying to say as I tried to get you to do in post#54. If you are concerned about mispreresentations of your view then you should try making your points without sarcasm, ridicule and snide flip comments which obscure anything worthwhile that you might have to say.

 

This is, to put no finer point on it, bollocks, and you know it. You imply that I did not use the issue of public access in my argument when I clearly did, and you state me as having persued a line of argument that is explicitely critical of the Island as a whole which I clearly didn't. This is not a mere error in summarising my argument, or a misinterpretation of a suggestion. It is instead cold, definite invention on your part. I do not deny that I have in certain posts been flippant and sarcastic (rest assured, however, I was mocking only you, and ridiculing your claims - not the Island, or claims that the chessmen should go elsewhere instead), but from them you cannot innocently draw the conclusions you have (especially when there has been evidence to the contrary).

[Declan]

Skeddan I think you are aiming too low, rather than ask for the Lewis Chessset back, you should be asking for the Isle of Lewis back, we could then set up an EEZ between us and them and claim all the oil.

[VinnieK]

Skeddan I think you are aiming too low, rather than ask for the Lewis Chessset back, you should be asking for the Isle of Lewis back, we could then set up an EEZ between us and them and claim all the oil.

 

Still not grand enough. We should claim all of the Western Isles back AND annex Scottish and English land to the value of the total interest on the value of our original lands and revenue lost during the period of separation.

 

THEN we should claim all the possessions of any family descended from our Scandinavian one time rulers as national treasures that would have already been in our hands if we hadn't been separated from our territory and our masters.

 

We can then stick all our loot in a big pile on Tynwald hill and giggle ourselves silly.

[Skeddan]

This is, to put no finer point on it, bollocks, and you know it. You imply that I did not use the issue of public access in my argument when I clearly did, and you state me as having persued a line of argument that is explicitely critical of the Island as a whole which I clearly didn't. This is not a mere error in summarising my argument, or a misinterpretation of a suggestion. It is instead cold, definite invention on your part. I do not deny that I have in certain posts been flippant and sarcastic (rest assured, however, I was mocking only you, and ridiculing your claims - not the Island, or claims that the chessmen should go elsewhere instead), but from them you cannot innocently draw the conclusions you have (especially when there has been evidence to the contrary).

You state that I imply that you did not use the issue of public access in your argument when it was obvious you did, and I implied no such thing. You state me as having stated you as having persued a line of argument that is explicitly critical of the Island as a whole, which I didn’t. You are misrepresenting me as having misrepresented you. This is not mere error etc. etc. etc.

 

WFT VinnieK – this hypocritical sanctimonious high-handed judgmental crap you’re spouting just doesn’t wash. You are playing the aggrieved and injured party over a non-existent triffle, meanwhile you think it ok for you to be rude, insulting, and to go around deliberately distorting and misrepresenting what other people are saying.

 

I would say you are ridiculing yourself, but you would probably come back with some crap about how this is a cold deliberate misrepresentation of your argument etc. etc.

[Skeddan]

Skeddan I think you are aiming too low, rather than ask for the Lewis Chessset back, you should be asking for the Isle of Lewis back, we could then set up an EEZ between us and them and claim all the oil.

I think even if Lewis, the Western Isles and all the oil were handed on a plate, there would be people here who would pour scorn on that and stubbornly resist. It's hard enough just suggesting there could be a claim to just a basic little EEZ and a few walrus-tusk chessmen .

[sorley]

Skeddan I think you are aiming too low, rather than ask for the Lewis Chessset back, you should be asking for the Isle of Lewis back, we could then set up an EEZ between us and them and claim all the oil.

 

I don't think anyone on eilean siar would complain you couldn't do worse than the english parties have done for us thats why the western isles are an snp haven hell maybe if mec vanninn stood for election here they would probably get in.

 

by the way a lewis chess set is quite a popular birthday/ wedding present up here. I actually saw 5 of the originals when they were on loan to the stornoway museum

[John Wright]

The answer of course is that there is no answer

 

They are the artefact of a country which has disappeared and have no actual physical connection with the IOM, except tat they may have ben made as a present for its then bishop from the Archbishop of Trondheim. That makes them Norwegian and factors Norway into the equation

 

The same happens with the Chronicles of Man. Thye were written by monks at Ballasalla. The monks wrote in latin and their order was headquarterd in France. The fact they were written here about manx History does not make them "manx"

 

Both have unfortunate later provenances but as with everything ownership is nine tenths of the law.

 

The things will not be moved around if the British Museum worries that they will lose them if sent out on loan. We have to get over this "its mine" attitude and start looking at how we can share these things, with them all reunited from time to time in London, Edinburgh Lewis and Man and mah ybe Trondheim ad Chatres and with replicas on display withexplanations in IOM and Lewis all the time any way.

[Albert Tatlock]

In the digital age does it really matter? People can still 'see', read or study the detail - and we own the history which they can't take away from us anyway. What's the real difference between looking at a document or a chess set that you can't touch because it's sat behind re-enforced glass, and studying HD images of it on computer? Moreover, sat somewhere else, these things act as advertisements and might encourage people elsewhere to actually visit here.

 

Personally, if I wanted to see these particular things, I'd google them. Digital museums are the next big thing IMO, especially 3D enhanced computer imaging.

 

I'd hate to see tax payers money wasted in the millions or hundreds of thousands to get something like that back. There are much bigger problems to solve with that money.

[manshimajin]

IMO the UK Government could agree to sell them to the Scottish Government to recover some of the subsidised cost overruns incurred buiding the Scottish Parliament.

 

It would then make more sense to return them to Lewis so that they would reside in the Norse/Celtic location from which they came rather than an Anglo-Scots one in Edinburgh (I understand that recent DNA research has shown that 'Scots' up to Perthshire share similar DNA to the English (unlike Highland and Island Scots).