Eyrarland Statue
The Eyrarland Statue is a seated bronze statue of a figure (6.7 cm[1][2]) from about AD 1000 that was recovered at the farm Eyrarland in the area of Akureyri, Iceland. The object is a featured item at the National Museum of Iceland. The statue may depict the Norse god Thor and/or may be a gaming-piece.
The statue was unearthed in 1815 or 1816 on one of two farms called Eyrarland in the vicinity of Akureyri.[2][3][4]
If the object is correctly identified as Thor, Thor is here holding his hammer Mjöllnir, sculpted in the typically Icelandic cross-like shape. It has been suggested that the statue is related to a scene from the Poetic Edda poem Þrymskviða where Thor recovers his hammer while seated by grasping it with both hands during the wedding ceremony.[5]
Notes
- ↑ Úr íslenzkri listsögu fyrri alda (in Icelandic). Birtingur. 1 June 1962. p. 5. Retrieved 5 November 2016.
- 1 2 Eldjárn, Kristján (1981). "The bronze image from Eyrarland". In Dronke, Ursula et al. Specvlvm norroenvm: Norse studies in memory of Gabriel Turville-Petre. Odense University Press. p. 75. ISBN 978-87-7492-289-6.
- ↑ Perkins, Richard (2001). Thor the wind-raiser and the Eyrarland image. London: Viking Society for Northern Research, University College London. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-903521-52-9.
- ↑ Bertelsen, Lise Gjedssø (2000). "Some New Aspects of the Ringerike-Style Statuette from Eyrarland, Northern Iceland". In Ingi Sigurðsson and Jón Skaptason. Aspects of Arctic and sub-Arctic history: proceedings of the International Congress on the History of the Arctic and the Sub-Arctic Region, Reykjavík, 18-21 June 1998. Reykjavík: University of Iceland. p. 507. ISBN 978-9979-54-435-7.
- ↑ Ross, Margaret Clunies (2002). "Reading Þrymskviða". In Acker, Paul; Larrington, Carolyne. The Poetic Edda: Essays on Old Norse Mythology. London: Routledge. pp. 188–189. ISBN 0-8153-1660-7.