The Roskilde Jars () stand on the square outside the railway station in

Roskilde Roskilde ( , ) is a city west of Copenhagen on the Danish island of Zealand. With a population of 53,354 (), the city is a business and educational centre for the region and the 10th largest city in Denmark. It is governed by the administrative ...

on the Danish island of

Zealand Zealand ( ) is the largest and most populous islands of Denmark, island in Denmark proper (thus excluding Greenland and Disko Island, which are larger in size) at 7,031 km2 (2715 sq. mi.). Zealand had a population of 2,319,705 on 1 Januar ...

. The three huge jars are in height and together weigh about 24 tons. The jars are the work of the Danish abstract sculptor

Peter Brandes Peter Brandes (5 March 1944 – 4 January 2025) was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and photographer. Biography Brandes' art is abstract and often in brown colours. He had his breakthrough as artist in the beginning of the 1980s. H ...

(born 1944). They were commissioned by Elsebeth Stryhn of Stryhns Leverpostej, a local meat paste company, and presented to the city in 1998 on the occasion of Roskilde's 1,000th anniversary. The jars stand in a shallow basin of water, in which they are reflected. The one closest to the station is inscribed with extracts from Henrik Nordbrandt's poem ''Junker Kristoffer'', a local hero buried in Roskilde Cathedral in 1363. The colourful glazed jars (two in tones of blue, the third in bronze) are reminiscent of Ancient Greek

amphora An amphora (; ; English ) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storage rooms and packages, tied together with rope and delivered by land ...

s. They have accounted for several world records in pottery manufacture. Consisting of several hundred sections fired up to 1,300 °C at the Tommerup ceramics factory on the island of

Funen Funen (, ), is the third-largest List of islands of Denmark, island of Denmark, after Zealand and North Jutlandic Island, Vendsyssel-Thy, with an area of . It is the List of islands by area, 165th-largest island in the world. It is located in th ...

, they were assembled by two men who stacked the sections on top of each other.

References

{{coord, 55, 38, 24, N, 12, 05, 19, E, display=title Roskilde Outdoor sculptures in Denmark 1998 sculptures Danish sculpture Monuments and memorials in Denmark Tourist attractions in Roskilde Municipality

See also

References