A Viking statuette, considered as the first realistic “portrait” of a Viking, was recently rediscovered in the reserves of the National Museum of Denmark. Preserved away for more than two centuries, it is distinguished by the precision of its execution and the unpublished elements which it reveals concerning individual representation in the Viking era.
Discovered in 1796 in a tumulus of the Oslo Fjord, Norway, the figurine had been integrated into the national collections without being the subject of a highlight. Peter Pentz, curator at the National Museum, has given him up as part of research for a new exhibition. “When I came across him in one of our reserves a few years ago, I was really surprised – he was simply there, looking at me straight in the eyes”he reports. According to him, “Most of the Vikings of human figures are quite simple, and they don’t really look like humans. He, I find that he seems to have told a joke, he smiles ”.
The figurine, dated from the 10th century, three centimeters high and cut in Morse ivory, represents a man with a structured haircut – line in the middle, short nape – a neat mustache, favorites and a braided beard. The stylistic analysis relates this type of representation to the Viking elite around the year. The statuette could have embodied a figure of authority or royalty. Pentz also advances the hypothesis that it has formed the central piece of a game of Hnefatafl, ancestor of the chessboard. According to him, it could even be a representation of King Harald in the Blue Dent, which lived at the time of the creation of the figurine.
The material used confirms the object belonging to an elite. Morse ivory, rare and precious, came from the Arctic or Greenland, testifying to the long -distance exchanges networks maintained by the Vikings.
The National Museum of Denmark, in Copenhagen, now retains the statuette and temporarily exhibits it in “The prophecy of the Völva”, a presentation devoted to Nordic beliefs and rituals. The exhibition invites us to reflect on the concepts of identity and representation within the company Viking.
