N-QB3: Chessmen on the Move!?

There are efforts to move the famed Lewis Chessmen from their perch in the Europe AD 1000-1540 gallery at the British Museum back to their native Scotland, where they were found in the early 1800s off the Bay of Uig on the Isle of Lewis.

The fight for the pallid dwarves has been long-running but recent activities have brought the story back into the news: 

Speaking to BBC Scotland, Annie MacDonald, an SNP councillor on Lewis, said it was time that the pieces were returned. She said: "We would like them back up here because I believe that today we can actually hold them up here in the Western Isles. We had an exhibition just a month ago where we had 17th Century artefacts and it went down very well for three months. I'm pretty sure we could easily hold the chess pieces here as well."

[First Minister Alex Salmond] Salmond reportedly said he found it unacceptable that the pieces were scattered around the UK. He said he would continue to campaign for their return to Scotland.

The chessmen figure in to the plot of Bellairs’s 1989 novel, The Chessmen of Doom.