The Golden Horns of Gallehus were two horns made of
sheet gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
, discovered in Gallehus, north of
Møgeltønder
Møgeltønder () is a small town in Denmark, located in Møgeltønder Parish and Tønder Municipality in the southwestern corner of the Danish peninsula of Jutland 5 kilometres north of the Danish-German border and 4 kilometres west of Tønde ...
in
Southern Jutland
Southern Jutland ( da, Sønderjylland; German: Südjütland) is the name for the region south of the Kongeå in Jutland, Denmark and north of the Eider (river) in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The region north of the Kongeå is called da, Nørr ...
,
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark
...
.
[Official Danish news (DR) page with fact box regarding the subject]
; The horns are also identified as ''Tunderense'' in older literature, a learned Latin adjective formation of ''Tundern'', the old name of Tønder.
The horns dated to the early 5th century, i.e. the beginning of the
Germanic Iron Age
The archaeology of Northern Europe studies the prehistory of Scandinavia and the adjacent North European Plain,
roughly corresponding to the territories of modern Sweden, Norway, Denmark, northern Germany, Poland and the Netherlands.
The regio ...
.
The horns were found in 1639 and in 1734, respectively, at locations only some 15–20 metres apart.
[ They were composed of segments of double sheet gold. The two horns were found incomplete; the longer one found in 1639 had seven segments with ornaments, to which six plain segments and a plain rim were added, possibly by the 17th-century restorer. The shorter horn found in 1734 had six segments, a narrow one bearing a ]Proto-Norse
Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic, Ancient Scandinavian, Ancient Norse, Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Proto-Scandinavian and Proto-North Germanic) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a ...
Elder Futhark
The Elder Futhark (or Fuþark), also known as the Older Futhark, Old Futhark, or Germanic Futhark, is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a writing system used by Germanic peoples for Northwest Germanic dialects in the Migration Peri ...
inscription at the rim and five ornamented with images. It is uncertain whether the horns were intended as drinking horn
A drinking horn is the horn of a bovid used as a drinking vessel. Drinking horns are known from Classical Antiquity, especially the Balkans, and remained in use for ceremonial purposes throughout the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period in ...
s, or as blowing horn
The blowing horn or winding horn is a sound device that is usually made of or shaped like an animal horn, arranged to blow from a hole in the pointed end of it. This rudimentary device had a variety of functions in many cultures, in most cases r ...
s, although drinking horns have more pronounced history as luxury items made from precious metal.
The original horns were stolen and melted down in 1802. Casts made of the horns in the late 18th century were also lost. Replicas of the horns must thus rely on 17th and 18th-century drawings exclusively and are accordingly fraught with uncertainty. Nevertheless, replicas of the original horns were produced, two of them exhibited at the National Museum of Denmark
The National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet) in Copenhagen is Denmark's largest museum of cultural history, comprising the histories of Danish and foreign cultures, alike. The museum's main building is located a short distance from Strøget ...
, Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
, with copies at e.g. the Moesgaard Museum
Moesgaard Museum (MOMU) is a Danish regional museum dedicated to archaeology and ethnography. It is located in Beder, a suburb of Aarhus, Denmark.
MOMU cooperates with the Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology, Medieval and Renaissance Archaeolo ...
, near Aarhus
Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and approximately northwest ...
, Denmark. These replicas also have a history of having been stolen and retrieved twice, in 1993 and in 2007.
The horns are the subject of one of the best-known poems in Danish literature, "The Golden Horns" (''Guldhornene''), by Adam Oehlenschläger
Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger (14 November 177920 January 1850) was a Danish poet and playwright. He introduced romanticism into Danish literature. He wrote the lyrics to the song ''Der er et yndigt land'', which is one of the national anthems ...
.
Description
Both horns consisted of two layers of gold sheet, the inner sheet of lesser quality, amalgamated with silver, the outer sheet of pure gold. The outer sheet was constructed from a number of rings, each covered with cast figures soldered onto the rings, with yet more figures chased into the rings between the larger figures. The second horn bore an Elder Futhark
The Elder Futhark (or Fuþark), also known as the Older Futhark, Old Futhark, or Germanic Futhark, is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a writing system used by Germanic peoples for Northwest Germanic dialects in the Migration Peri ...
inscription in Proto-Norse
Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic, Ancient Scandinavian, Ancient Norse, Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Proto-Scandinavian and Proto-North Germanic) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a ...
which is of great value for Germanic linguistics
Germanic philology is the philological study of the Germanic languages, particularly from a comparative or historical perspective.
The beginnings of research into the Germanic languages began in the 16th century, with the discovery of literary tex ...
.
Both horns were once the same length, but a segment of the narrow end of the second (shorter) horn, which was missing when it was found (1734), had already been plowed up and recovered prior to 1639. It also was subsequently melted down and lost.
The longer horn in its restored state was 75.8 cm in length, as measured along the outer perimeter; the opening diameter was 10.4 cm., and the horn weighed 3.2 kg.
Because the casts made of the horns were lost, it is uncertain whether the horns were simply curved or whether they had a winding, helix-like curvature like a natural ox-horn.
Runic inscription
The second horn bore the following Elder Futhark
The Elder Futhark (or Fuþark), also known as the Older Futhark, Old Futhark, or Germanic Futhark, is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a writing system used by Germanic peoples for Northwest Germanic dialects in the Migration Peri ...
inscription ( DR 12 †U):
:
(1734 drawing after the original)
: (Runic Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
)
:ekhlewagastiz:holtijaz:horna:tawido: (transliteration)
This is read as a sentence in Proto-Norse
Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic, Ancient Scandinavian, Ancient Norse, Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Proto-Scandinavian and Proto-North Germanic) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a ...
, ', translating to "I Hlewagastiz Holtijaz made the horn". This inscription is among the earliest inscriptions in the Elder Futhark that record a full sentence, and the earliest preserving a line of alliterative verse
In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of ...
.
The meaning of the given name
A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a fa ...
''Hlewagastiz'' is debated: it may mean either "lee guest" or "fame guest". ''Holtijaz'' may either be a patronymic, "son (or descendant) of Holt", or express a characteristic such as "of the wood".
Possible cipher runes
The two rows of images in the top segment of the longer horn have been taken as a cipher
In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...
encoding a runic text of 22 letters, although there is no universally accepted decipherment. Hartner (1969) read ''luba horns ens helpa hjoho'', an "apotropaic
Apotropaic magic (from Greek "to ward off") or protective magic is a type of magic intended to turn away harm or evil influences, as in deflecting misfortune or averting the evil eye. Apotropaic observances may also be practiced out of supersti ...
sentence" translated by Hartner as "may I, the potion of this horn, bring help to the clan".
Iconography
The figures embossed on the horns combine depictions of numerous anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and hybrid
Hybrid may refer to:
Science
* Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding
** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species
** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two dif ...
motifs. In addition to the main figures which are soldered to the horn, protruding from the horn surface, there are a number of additional figures and ornaments realized by chasing.
There have been numerous attempts at their interpretation, all speculative. Interpretation is especially difficult since it has to rely on the imprecise drawings made before the loss of the original horns. Interpretations usually try to align the iconography with Germanic mythology
Germanic mythology consists of the body of myths native to the Germanic peoples, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, and Continental Germanic mythology. It was a key element of Germanic paganism.
Origins
As the Germanic language ...
, although Mediterranean (Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
) elements are also cited.
Obvious parallels with Germanic Migration Period art
Migration Period art denotes the artwork of the Germanic peoples during the Migration period (c. 300 – 900). It includes the Migration art of the Germanic tribes on the continent, as well the start of the Insular art or Hiberno-Saxon art of th ...
are rather limited. There are large considerable number of serpents, some of them intertwining in the fashion of the wider animal style
Animal style art is an approach to decoration found from China to Northern Europe in the early Iron Age, and the barbarian art of the Migration Period, characterized by its emphasis on animal motifs. The zoomorphic style of decoration was used ...
of Dark Age Europe. A figure holding a horn may be compared to the "valkyrie" shown on the Tjängvide image stone
The Tjängvide image stone, listed in Rundata as Gotland Runic Inscription 110 or G 110, is a Viking Age image stone from Tjängvide (),, from ''c.'' 700-900 AD, which is about three kilometers west of Ljugarn, Gotland, Sweden.
Description
Th ...
. Two masked figures armed with sword and shield on the smaller horn are reminiscent of other Germanic depictions of sword-dances, e.g. on the Sutton Hoo helmet
The Sutton Hoo helmet is a decorated Anglo-Saxon helmet found during a 1939 excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial. It was buried around 625 and is widely associated with King Rædwald of East Anglia; its elaborate decoration may have giv ...
. Two other armed figures with large horns or antlers may be compared to horned helmet
Horned helmets were worn by many people around the world. Headpieces mounted with animal horns or replicas were also worn from ancient times, as in the Mesolithic Star Carr. These were probably used for religious ceremonial or ritual purposes, ...
iconography, or to the "Cernunnos
In ancient Celtic and Gallo-Roman religion, Cernunnos or Carnonos was a god depicted with antlers, seated cross-legged, and is associated with stags, horned serpents, dogs and bulls. He is usually shown holding or wearing a torc and sometimes ...
" figure on the Gundestrup cauldron
The Gundestrup cauldron is a richly decorated silver vessel, thought to date from between 200 BC and 300 AD,Nielsen, S; Andersen, J; Baker, J; Christensen, C; Glastrup, J; et al. (2005). "The Gundestrup cauldron: New scientific and technical ...
. The peculiar image of a tricephalous (three-headed) figure has been taken as a pagan predecessor of depictions of a tricephalous Christ
The Trinity is most commonly seen in Christian art with the Holy Spirit represented by a dove, as specified in the gospel accounts of the Baptism of Jesus, baptism of Christ; he is nearly always shown with wings outspread. However depictions usin ...
symbolizing the Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...
in Christian iconography but is difficult to place in a contemporary context. Olrik (1918) nevertheless recognized a number of Norse gods
Norse is a demonym for Norsemen, a medieval North Germanic ethnolinguistic group ancestral to modern Scandinavians, defined as speakers of Old Norse from about the 9th to the 13th centuries.
Norse may also refer to:
Culture and religion
* Nors ...
among the figures, including Tyr, Odin
Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered Æsir, god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, v ...
, Thor
Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred groves ...
and Freyr
Freyr (Old Norse: 'Lord'), sometimes anglicized as Frey, is a widely attested god in Norse mythology, associated with kingship, fertility, peace, and weather. Freyr, sometimes referred to as Yngvi-Freyr, was especially associated with Sweden an ...
.
Frankfurt historian of science Willy Hartner in 1969 published an interpretation involving gematria
Gematria (; he, גמטריא or gimatria , plural or , ''gimatriot'') is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase according to an alphanumerical cipher. A single word can yield several values depending on the cipher ...
and archaeoastronomy
Archaeoastronomy (also spelled archeoastronomy) is the interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used these phenomena and what role the sky played in their cultur ...
, taking many of the figures as representing constellation
A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object.
The origins of the e ...
s, claiming that the iconography refers to a lunar eclipse of 4 November 412 and a solar eclipse of 16 April 413.
The first horn (A) had figures arranged in seven segments, The second horn (B) had six segments including the narrow one containing the runic inscription around the rim.
Discovery
First horn
The longer horn was discovered on July 20, 1639 by a peasant girl named Kirsten Svendsdatter in the village of Gallehus, near Møgeltønder
Møgeltønder () is a small town in Denmark, located in Møgeltønder Parish and Tønder Municipality in the southwestern corner of the Danish peninsula of Jutland 5 kilometres north of the Danish-German border and 4 kilometres west of Tønde ...
, Denmark when she saw it protrude above the ground. She wrote a letter to King Christian IV of Denmark
Christian IV (12 April 1577 – 28 February 1648) was King of Denmark and Norway and Duke of Holstein and Schleswig from 1588 until his death in 1648. His reign of 59 years, 330 days is the longest of Danish monarchs and Scandinavian monar ...
who retrieved it and in turn gave it to the Danish prince Christian, who refurbished it into a drinking-horn, adding a golden pommel to be screwed on at the narrow end to close it up.
The Danish antiquarian Olaus Wormius
Ole Worm (13 May 1588 – 31 August 1654), who often went by the Latinized form of his name Olaus Wormius, was a Danish physician, natural historian and antiquary. He was a professor at the University of Copenhagen where he taught Greek, Lati ...
wrote a treatise named ''De aureo cornu'' on the first Golden Horn in 1641.
The first preserved sketch of the horn comes from this treatise. Wormius notes that he had not seen the horn in the state in which it was found, and it cannot now be determined whether the rim and the narrow segments devoid of ornamentation were modern additions like the pommel.
In 1678, the horn was described in the ''Journal des Savants
A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to:
*Bullet journal, a method of personal organization
*Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period
*Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...
''.
Second horn
About 100 years later on April 21, 1734 the other (shorter, damaged) horn was found by Erich Lassen not far from the first horn. He gave it to the count of Schackenborg who in turn delivered it to King Christian VI of Denmark
Christian VI (30 November 1699 – 6 August 1746) was King of Denmark and Norway from 1730 to 1746. The eldest surviving son of Frederick IV and Louise of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, he is considered one of Denmark-Norway's more anonymous kings, bu ...
and received 200 rigsdaler in return. From this moment both horns were stored at ''Det kongelige Kunstkammer'' (The Royal Chamber of Art) at Christiansborg
Christiansborg Palace ( da, Christiansborg Slot; ) is a palace and government building on the islet of Slotsholmen in central Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the seat of the Danish Parliament ('), the Danish Prime Minister's Office, and the Supreme ...
, currently the Danish Rigsarkivet
, nativename_a =
, nativename_r =
, logo =
, logo_width = 300px
, logo_caption =
, seal =
, seal_width =
, seal_caption =
, picture = File:Rigsarkivet.jpg
, picture_width =
, picture_cap ...
(national archive). The shorter horn was described in a treatise by archivist Richard Joachim Paulli in the same year.
Burglary and destruction
Original horns
On May 4, 1802, the horns were stolen by a goldsmith
A goldsmith is a Metalworking, metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Nowadays they mainly specialize in jewelry-making but historically, goldsmiths have also made cutlery, silverware, platter (dishware), pl ...
and watchmaker
A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now factory-made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their par ...
named Niels Heidenreich from Foulum
Foulum is a small Danish village with around 100 households (the settlement Formyre also included) in the Tjele parish located in Central Jutland eight kilometres east of Viborg. Foulum is a part of Region Midtjylland and a part of the Viborg ...
, who entered a storage area containing the horns using forged keys. Heidenreich took the horns home and melted them down to recycle the gold. The theft was discovered the next day and a bounty of 1,000 rigsdaler was advertised in the papers.
The grandmaster of the goldsmiths guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
, Andreas Holm, suspected that Heidenreich had been involved, since he had tried to sell Holm forged “pagoda
A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...
s” (Indian coins with god motifs), made from bad gold mixed with brass
Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...
. Holm and his colleagues had kept watch on Heidenreich and saw him dump coin stamps in the town moat. He was arrested on April 27, 1803, and confessed on April 30. On June 10, Heidenreich was sentenced to prison, and not released until 1840. He died four years later. His buyers returned the recycled gold, which ended up in coins, not copies of the horns.
However, a set of plaster
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for Molding (decorative), moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of ...
casts of the horns had been made for a cardinal
Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to:
Animals
* Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds
**''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae
**''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...
in Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
, but they had already been lost in a shipwreck off the Corsica
Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of ...
n coast. Approximate copies were instead created from sketches. The horns pictured above are newer copies, made in 1980.
Copies
In 1993, copies of the horns were stolen from Moesgaard Museum
Moesgaard Museum (MOMU) is a Danish regional museum dedicated to archaeology and ethnography. It is located in Beder, a suburb of Aarhus, Denmark.
MOMU cooperates with the Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology, Medieval and Renaissance Archaeolo ...
, which were shortly after recovered ditched in a forest near Hasselager
Hasselager is a small suburban area in the south-western part of Aarhus in Denmark. It is about 8 km from the city center and has approximately 7.437 (2018) residents, mostly of Danish heritage.
Hasselager has largely merged with neighbouring ...
. These copies are made of gilded brass
Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...
.
On September 17, 2007, a set of modern gilded
Gilding is a decorative technique for applying a very thin coating of gold over solid surfaces such as metal (most common), wood, porcelain, or stone. A gilded object is also described as "gilt". Where metal is gilded, the metal below was tradi ...
silver
Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
copies were stolen from Kongernes Jelling museum at 4:30 in the morning, but were recovered shortly after on September 19, 2007.[Trafficking Culture, http://traffickingculture.org/encyclopedia/case-studies/golden-horns-of-gallehus/]
References
Literature
* Arthur Beer:
Hartner and the Riddle of the Golden Horns
', Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. 1, p. 139 (1970).
* Ottar Grønvik
Ottar Nicolai Grønvik (21 October 1916 – 15 May 2008) was a Norwegian philologist and runologist.
He was a lecturer from 1959 and associate professor from 1965 to 1986 at the University of Oslo. His doctoral thesis, which earned him the dr.phi ...
: ''Runinskriften på gullhornet fra Gallehus.'' In: ''Maal og Minne.'' Det Norske Samlaget, Oslo 1999, 1, 1–18.
* Willy Hartner: ''Die Goldhörner von Gallehus'' F. Steiner, Stuttgart (1969), reprint 1998, .
* Heinz Klingenberg: ''Runenschrift – Schriftdenken – Runeninschriften''. Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1973.
* H. F. Nielsen, W. Heizmann, M. Axboe:
Gallehus
'. In: ''Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde
''Germanische Altertumskunde Online'', formerly called ''Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde'', is a German encyclopedia of the study of Germanic history and cultures, as well as the cultures that were in close contact with them.
The first ...
'', ed. Heinrich Beck. Bd 10. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-New York 1998, pp. 330 ff.
External links
Reproductions
at the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
The Golden Horns
(natmus.dk)
Trafficking Culture
{{DEFAULTSORT:Golden Horns Of Gallehus
5th-century works
1639 archaeological discoveries
1734 archaeological discoveries
Prehistoric objects in the National Museum of Denmark
Archaeological discoveries in Denmark
Germanic archaeological artifacts
Germanic paganism
Early Germanic art
Proto-Norse language
Elder Futhark inscriptions
Archaeological artifacts
Gold objects
Iron Age Scandinavia
Prehistory of Denmark
Lost works of art
Gold in Denmark