Chess

The Lewis Chessmen Unmasked exhibition has been at the Aberdeen Art Gallery since October and as my office is nearby I've be lucky to be able to pop in a few times to see it ... the exhibition finishes on 8th January so I nipped in to spend a last wee while marvelling at these ivory items at dinner time today.

It's a great exhibition and gathers pieces from both the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and the British Museum in London in one place and also places Scotland's Gaelic Culture centre stage.

Photography is not allowed in the exhibit, so here I've taken a shot of the Lewis Chessmen fridge magnet that I got in the shop at the gallery and cropped it close so that it hopefully looks a wee bit like the real thing :-)

If you are in Aberdeen tomorrow or Saturday and haven't seen it, its worth a visit and it's free.

The exhibition now moves North to the Shetland Museum where it will be on show from 21st January to 27th March, then from 15th April to 12th September the chessmen will be home and on show at the Museum nan Eilean in Steornabhagh.

Taking treasures like these out on tour around the country is a great idea and the folk who organised this deserve a great deal of praise. Having said that, I'd rather the entire collection was permanently housed in Leòdhas - it could always go on tour from there ;-)