Saga Museum gift shop

I’ve already showed off some of the beads, needle cases, and festoons available from the Saga Museum gift shop but I thought I’d do a super-quick post showing off a few of the other items they had available.

A few jewelry items from the Saga Museum gift shop

Included in their display cabinet were wire bracelets (torc-style bracelets) round domed brooches, large ornate buckles, small brooches, strap/belt ends, penannular brooches, tri-lobed/trifoil brooches, pagan-style pendants, Jelling-style brooches, religious/spiritual pendants, and more.  I looked at a few of the prices that I could easily see, and they were too high for me to consider looking too much at or asking to see anything. (For instance, the small bronze penannular brooch in the middle below was 7800kr – about the equivalent of $78.00 Canadian.

Brooches from the Saga Museum gift shop

Sagamuseum – The Saga Museum
www.sagamuseum.is/
Grandagarður, 101 Reykjavík, Iceland
+354 511 1517

Icelandic drinking horns

Drinking horns along with brooches and other items in the Iceland National Museum

It doesn’t really directly apply to my interest in Viking Age costuming, but I thought I’d also share a display from the Iceland National Museum on some of the drinking horns.  These weren’t actually from the Settlement Age area of the museum, but rather in a display on the “New Ruling Class” in the Middle Ages in Iceland. The display stated that drinking horns “were common in the Nordic world in the Middle Ages, used for toasts on special occasions”, but that “only in Iceland were such horns decorated with carvings, the oldest one still in existence daring to the first half of the 15th century”.

From top left, clockwise:

• “Drinking horn with carvings of King David, St. Olav and probably Solomon. Inscription: God so loved the world – 16th century”
• “Drinking horn depicting Adam and Eve at [the] tree of [ ] Knowledge of Good and Evil. 17th century”
• “Unusually well-preserved drinking horn with images of monsters, the head of a beast, a human face and interlaced decoration.”
• “Drinking horn with images of St. Anne, Mary and infant Jesus, and Christ on the cross in the embrace of God the Father, 15th century.”
• The dark coloured one in the back is noted as “Mariuhorn, drinking horn with the [inscription] Ave Maria”.

 

Carved horns in the Iceland National Museum

Above – close up on the unusually well-preserved horn.

Needle cases – museum finds

Needles and a needle case in the needle coiling display

In a previous post I showed off a needle case and needles that were part of the needle coiling display at the Iceland National Museum in Reykjavik. Since I’m showing off a lot of my photos thematically (rather than in the order they were in at the museum) I wanted to take this time to look at a few of the other needle cases (and the displays that accompanied them).

Like the one with the needle coiling display, I was surprised to see how small the needle cases were.

Viking “roach” brooch at the Saga Museum

Mother figure wearing a folded apron dress held with “roach” shaped brooches

After seeing the large tortoise (oval/ turtle) brooches from Viking Age finds, I was struck how distinctly different this brooch was, from the Saga Museum in Iceland. The character portrayed is supposed to be a Celtic woman taken as a slave/wife by a Nordic Viking Age man, and taken to Iceland. The brooch is much, much smaller than the other brooches displayed (either the originals as seen elsewhere, or the reproductions in the Saga Museum) an has a pattern, size, and shape that reminded me of a cockroach! (Hence, I’m calling it a “roach brooch” even if that’s not the most flattering name!

Other figures at the Saga Museum

A figure representing a speculative pre-Viking visitor to Iceland

The remaining figures that I haven’t already shared from the Saga Museum aren’t related to costumes I want to make, but I thought I’d share them nonetheless for anyone who might be interested.