The Torslunda plates are four cast bronze dies found in the Torslunda parish on the Swedish island

Öland Öland (, ; ; sometimes written ''Oland'' internationally) is the second-largest Swedish island and the smallest of the traditional provinces of Sweden. Öland has an area of and is located in the Baltic Sea just off the coast of Småland. ...

. They display figures in

relief Relief is a sculpture, sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''wikt:relief, relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give ...

, representing what are presumed to be traditional scenes from

Germanic mythology Germanic mythology consists of the body of myths native to the Germanic peoples, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon paganism#Mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, and Continental Germanic mythology. It was a key element of Germanic paganism. O ...

. The plates are moulds designed for production rather than display; by placing thin sheets of foil against the scenes and hammering or otherwise applying pressure from the back, identical images could be quickly mass-produced. The resulting ''pressblech'' foils would be used to decorate rich helmets of the sort found at

Vendel Vendel is a village at Tierp Municipality in Uppland, Sweden. The village overlooks Vendelsjön, a long inland stretch of water near the Vendel river which has its confluence with the river Fyris. Vendel was the site of an ancient royal estat ...

Valsgärde Valsgärde or Vallsgärde is a farm on the Fyris river, about three kilometres north of Gamla Uppsala, the ancient centre of the Swedish kings and of the pagan faith in Sweden. The present farm dates from the 16th century. The farm's notability ...

, and

Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo is the site of two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. Archaeology, Archaeologists have been excavating the area since 1938, when an undisturbed ship burial containing a wea ...

. Two of the plates may have been made as casts of existing ''pressblech'' foils.

Discovery

The plates were discovered in a

cairn A cairn is a human-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehistory, t ...

in early 1870, and are in the collection of the Statens Historiska Museum. Their fame derives from containing full scenes from mythology, unlike the fragmentary and degraded scraps of ''pressblech'' foils that are known. The plates have been exhibited internationally, including from 13 May to 26 June 1966, when they were part of the exhibition ''Swedish Gold'' at the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. The plates have been dated to the

Vendel Period In Scandinavian prehistory, sometimes specifically Swedish prehistory, the Vendel Period, or Vendel Age (; ) appears between the Migration Period and the Viking Age. The name is taken from the rich boat inhumation cemetery at Vendel parish ...

of the 6th and 7th centuries.

Description

Each plate contains a different mythological design, traditionally labeled: *Torslunda plate ( SHM ID: 108869_HST) – "walking warriors carrying spears" *Torslunda plate ( SHM ID: 618349_HST) – "dancing man with horned head-dress and man with spear wearing wolfskin" *Torslunda plate ( SHM ID: 618350_HST) – "man with axe holding roped animal" *Torslunda plate ( SHM ID: 618351_HST) – "man between bears" The warriors in 108869_HST are depicted as wearing Germanic boar helmets. File:Torslundaplåtarna 1995 (108869_HST).jpg, File:Torslundaplåtarna - Historiska museet - 618349 HST - 324349 (cropped).jpg, File:Torslundaplåtarna 1995 (618350_HST).jpg, File:Torslundaplåtarna 1995 (618351_HST).jpg,

Interpretation

The left figure on the plate 618349_HST is particularly well known for its missing right eye, shown by a laser scanner to have been struck out, likely from the original used to make the

mould A mold () or mould () is one of the structures that certain fungi can form. The dust-like, colored appearance of molds is due to the formation of spores containing fungal secondary metabolites. The spores are the dispersal units of the fungi ...

. This recalls the one-eyed Norse god

Odin Odin (; from ) is a widely revered god in Norse mythology and Germanic paganism. Most surviving information on Odin comes from Norse mythology, but he figures prominently in the recorded history of Northern Europe. This includes the Roman Em ...

, said to have given an eye to be allowed to drink from a well whose waters contained wisdom and intelligence, and suggests that the figure on the plate is him. He is depicted along with a wolfman, interpreted as a

berserker In the Old Norse written corpus, berserkers () were Scandinavian warriors who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the modern English adjective ''wikt:berserk#Adjective, berserk'' . Berserkers ...

, specifically a ''Úlfhéðinn'' (a wolf warrior). The latter is perhaps a ''

pars pro toto ; ; ), is a figure of speech where the name of a ''portion'' of an object, place, or concept is used or taken to represent its entirety. It is distinct from a merism, which is a reference to a whole by an enumeration of parts; and metonymy, where ...

'' embodying the wolf-warriors led in ecstatic dance by the god of frenzy.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * {{Commons category, Torslunda helmet plate patrices 1870 archaeological discoveries Archaeological artifacts Archaeological discoveries in Sweden Bronze objects Medieval European metalwork objects Swedish art Öland Collection of the Swedish History Museum