The site of Loisy : a strategic border area of the seigneurial power

The feudal mound of Loisy underwent eight excavation campaigns between 1966 and 1975, which revealed aristocratic and military occupation of the site.

Among the specimens found, dated to the early tenth century, the chess pieces form an exceptional set, demonstrating the high rank of the lord present.

In addition to the nine chess pieces made of deer antler, there were four playing pieces and three open-worked plaques, symbolic of refined furnishings. The game of chess was born in India and then spread to Persia and the Muslim world after the sixth century CE. It reached the West around the tenth century, via North Africa and Spain. Possibly made in Italy, the set of Loisy illustrates how flourishing a trade route the Saône was. It is also evidence of the adaptation to Western customs: the piece representing the wazir in the Arabic world had no counterpart in feudal society. Here, it is replaced by the queen.