Isle of Lewis Chessmen - Alternate Rook

I recently purchased the "Isle of Lewis Chess set", have wanted one for 3 years, and I finally bit the bullet and bought it. I set it up at work (No one at home plays), and everyone else seems to love it as well. Only one small thing. The rook doesn't exist, instead it's a beserker (Crazy viking warrior biting his shield). 

Although this doesn't bother me at all, it is a little confusing to some of my co-workers. I was wondering if any of you knew of another rook thats available to buy that has the look/feel of the lewis chess set, or at least would look like it belongs to the set?

There's a miniature Lewis Chess set that has square towers in place of the beserkers, so if there's a larger version of that one, it'll do nicely.

The "Beserker" belongs to the set. According to the British Museum those are the "Rooks". Why replace them with something that does not belong?

I agree with Rsava, the Berserker makes that set more true to the original. Where did you get your set? Just curious.

Although I agree with you, that the beserker adds character to the set, especially considering it's history.   I bought this for myself, but I set it up at work for me and my co-workers to enjoy.  I'm only interested in the replacement rooks for use while I"m at work. If I decide to take it home.. then i"ll play with the beserkers. I'm not looking to permentantly replace them, just while i"m at work for my co-workers benifit.

And to answer the other question. I bought this from Amazon... it's the official Isle of Lewis chessmen with a really nice Italian made chessboard. Linkage below.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004UG4Z7Y/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I bought one of the early Studio of Anne Carlton Isle of Lewis (Loos) sets when still Made in Britain 

Are you still looking to replace your Berserker Rooks for the other Rooks. I bought a full sized regular Isle of Lewis chess set, and it has two brown and two ivory colored regular rooks for the set, but I like the Berserkers. If you are still looking would you be willing to trade the pieces?

There are a couple of different versions of a couple of the pieces in the Lewis "chess set". In fact, the pieces found on Lewis are from a number of different incomplete sets of different sizes. There were 93 pieces found, and although there's now a consensus that the majority of them are chess pieces, some of them are probably not. There are a few theories about how they got there, but one of the more persuasive ones is that they belonged to a trader who intended to sell them, rather than being possessions of a collector. That would explain why there are so many pieces of different sizes mixed together.

As hand-carved pieces in an era before standardisation, and carved in a fairly individual medium, no two pieces are completely identical, and many of the differences are of deliberate design as well as expected deviation for a handmade product. For instance, some of the kings, bishops and rooks have beards, and some don't; some bishops are standing and some are seated, etc.

The rooks are perhaps the most famously distinctive pieces, with both a "regular" warrior rook and the berserker rook.

There's a version of the berserker with just a coif and no helmet, too:

Or at least these are the pieces generally identified as rooks. Some repro sets use these designs for the pawns, as the miniature set pictured above does.

The tower-style rooks in the miniature set above... they certainly look more like modern rooks than the men do. But they don't really fit with the rest of the set, where all the pieces are figurative. And if I remember rightly, only a couple of the tower pieces were found, as opposed to quite a few of the "warriors", which may suggest they're not chess pieces at all, but intended for some other game. The history of chess pieces in western Europe in this period is somewhat shrouded in mystery, but from what I've seen I'm not sure that the association of "rook" with a castle figure had yet been made: it may be a coincidence.

I've only seen the tower-style rooks sold with miniature versions of the set, for some reason. There may be larger versions available; I'm not sure.

The berserkers seem to be the most popular version of the rooks among modern collectors, because they're so characterful.

I think that it would be nice if you only own one Lewis set for it to display as much figural variation as possible while still being playable: the quirkiness and irregularity is part of the charm. Unfortunately and for obvious reasons most available sets seem to use identical designs for each instance of the same piece.

I have a Lewis set that I bought in the 1980,s. Most, if not all lewis sets that I have seen duplicate only 6 pieces. They use the same 6 pieces for black and white. My set uses a different set of pieces for the black side. 12 pieces have been used to make my set. My set looks closer to an original set, compared to sets that use the same 6 pieces for both sides. This set was inthe window of the chess store. It was the last one left in the shop. The store was in Manhattan,, a large multilevel parking lot was across the street. I think that it was on MacDugal st.. Magictwanger, I may have rubbed elbows with you, in that store.

I think that shop was Chess Forum?