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Settle down, listen to me carefully.....
"In the lands of the North, where the Black Rocks stand guard against the cold sea, in the dark night that is very long the Men of the Northlands sit by their great log fires and they tell a tale... and those tales they tell are the stories of a kind and wise king and his people; they are the Sagas of Noggin the Nog. Welcome to Northlands, a tribute to Noggin, King of the Nogs and the People of the Northlands."
Are you listening?
Noggin, King of Nogs, wonderful, you want to believe it dont you....
I believed it...once...but could it have all been a fiction?
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Although technically the animation for Noggin is quite simple, the stories, voices music and the overall visual impression, make it work.
I guess it is a combination of being slightly scary, mysterious and enchanting all at the same time......
Are you convinced?
Do you want to join us round the log fire?
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The visual imagery of Noggin is quite striking, maybe you have seen it somewhere?
Maybe you have visited the British Museum?
Looks familiar doesn't it?
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You're stumped aren't you?
Your brains stopped working.
You have no clue have you?
You're going to have to google it.
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If like N8, and are intrigued by these chess men and (like me you want to believe) you are gonna want to do a bit of digging.
You are probably going to start by a quick look at Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_chessmen
The page is a more than adequate representation of orthodox interpretation with some intriguing references (which we shall draw on later).
Let's take a swift wikilook......I will start at the beginning.
"The Lewis Chessmen (or Uig Chessmen, named after the bay where they were found) are a group of 78 chess pieces from the 12th century most of which are carved in walrus ivory"
Hang on.....we have a problem.....somebody from the back is heckling. What was that? What are you talking about?
Are you sure? Let me summarise.
1) We don't know they are from Lewis or Uig
2) We don't know they are chessmen.
3) We don't know they are a group.
4) We don't know they are 12th Century or indeed they were all carved at the same time....
Hmmmm... I guess I might need to have a rethink....Can anybody out there help me? I want to believe. I want to be convinced.
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Ok this is becoming complicated. Let's start at the beginning.
The provenance of important artefacts is important.
If you are going to invest, you normally would want some provenance, wouldn't you?
Lets see what happened, the British Museum are approached by this guy Forrest sometime around 1830....probably 1831
This is roughly what Forrest tells them.
'At an unknown date, an unknown ship is sheltering from a storm in a bay on the Isle of Lewis. Onboard, an unknown cabin boy seizes his chance to escape from the ship, sneaks into the Captain's cabin, steals a sack containing 128 carved walrus pieces (four chess sets) and swims ashore. The boy is spotted by an unknown person, who, unaccountably, murders him. The murderer disposes of the body in an unknown grave, buries the bag of pieces in an unknown location and leaves. He goes to Stornoway and whilst awaiting execution for an unknown crime confesses to killing the cabin boy. One day a herdsman's cow sticks its head into a sandbank and pulls out 92 of the chess pieces. The herdsman sells the find to a Captain Pyrie, who takes it to Edinburgh and sells it to a Mr Forrest. '
Acknowledgements to Geoff Chandler Not even from Lewis, mate.
Hmmm the provenance is a tad weird, but of course the British Museum goes ahead and purchases...
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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As with most academic forgeries there is nobody with an interest in exposing it. The BM would be millions out of pocket, the gawping public would have to move on to somethng else. Of course scholarship itself is fatally skewed since the Lewis chessmen are always hauled out as being characteristic of late Viking (aka Dark Age) art.
How sui generis are they? What was the original forger modelling the figures on? Presumably walrus ivory is carbon datable.
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | As with most academic forgeries there is nobody with an interest in exposing it. The BM would be millions out of pocket, the gawping public would have to move on to somethng else. |
Quite, the estimate on what is now called the Lewis hoard (not chess pieces) is 3-5 million......
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Presumably walrus ivory is carbon datable. |
OK I might need some help, on the techinal part. (chad?) as far as I am aware this is not the case. The last research paper called for more dating evidence. The dating evidece has so far been based on for example the "Bishops" mitres, and so called similar finds in Norway.
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | What was the original forger modelling the figures on? |
Honest answer is I don't know, they are officially Romanesque, which had me falling of my computer chair. At a guess I would have gone for late Gothic. The Queens to me look totally bored and the so called beserkers look like they are nibbling a shield.....
Does anybody think they compare with the example I posted?
Maybe it's me? I want to believe in Noggin....
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Come on it ain't a berserker.....
Is it?
Maybe it's me?
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