Eyrarland Statue

{{Short description|Bronze statue from about AD 1000 found in the area of Akureyri, Iceland}}

File:Reykjavik - Thor-Figur 1.jpg

The Eyrarland Statue is a bronze statue of a seated figure (6.7 cm{{cite book|title=Úr íslenzkri listsögu fyrri alda|date=1 June 1962|publisher=Birtingur|page=5|url=http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pageId=5389779|access-date=5 November 2016|language=is}}) from about AD 1000 that was recovered at the Eyrarland farm 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.{{Cite book|last=Eldjárn|first=Kristján|editor=Dronke, Ursula|editor-link=Ursula Dronke|display-editors=etal |contribution=The bronze image from Eyrarland|title=Specvlvm norroenvm: Norse studies in memory of Gabriel Turville-Petre|publisher=Odense University Press|year=1981|page=75|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1tqzAAAAIAAJ&q=The+image+is+said+to+have+been+found+in+1815+or+1816+on+the+farm+Eyrarland+near+Akureyri+in+northern+Iceland.2+There+are+two+farms+of+that+name+in+the+vicinity+of+Akureyri+and+it+is+not+possible+now+to+be+sure+on+which+of+them+the+image|isbn=978-87-7492-289-6}}{{Cite book|last=Perkins|first=Richard|title=Thor the wind-raiser and the Eyrarland image|publisher=Viking Society for Northern Research, University College London|year=2001|location=London|page=82|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lSoRAQAAIAAJ&q=%28KE1983%2C+64%29+|isbn=978-0-903521-52-9}}{{Cite book|last=Bertelsen|first=Lise Gjedssø|editor=Ingi Sigurðsson |editor2=Jón Skaptason|contribution=Some New Aspects of the Ringerike-Style Statuette from Eyrarland, Northern Iceland|title=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|publisher=University of Iceland|year=2000|location=Reykjavík|page=507|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rTHXAAAAMAAJ&q=It+is+said+to+have+been+found+in+1815+or+1816+on+the+farm+Eyrarland+near+Akureyri+and+was+sent+to+the+Museum+of+Antiquities+in+Copenhagen+in+1817+%28National+Museum+of+Denmark%2C+mus.+no.+LXV%29%2C+as+there+was+no+museum+in+Iceland|isbn=978-9979-54-435-7}}

If the object is correctly identified as Thor, Thor is holding his hammer, Mjölnir, 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.{{Cite book |last=Ross |first=Margaret Clunies |author-link=Margaret Clunies Ross |editor-last=Acker |editor-first =Paul |editor2-last=Larrington |editor2-first=Carolyne |contribution=Reading Þrymskviða |title=The Poetic Edda: Essays on Old Norse Mythology |publisher=Routledge |year=2002 |location=London |pages=188–189 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j4bufbA_UpQC

|isbn=0-8153-1660-7}} Another suggestion comes from the archeologist Kristján Eldjárn, who has written that it could be the central piece from a set of hnefatafl, based on its similarities to a smaller whalebone figure discovered in Baldursheimur together with black and white gaming pieces and a die.