Torslunda plates explained

Torslunda plates
Material:Bronze
Created: 6th–8th century AD
Discovered Place:Torslunda, Öland
Discovered Date:1870
Location:Statens Historiska Museum

The Torslunda plates are four cast bronze dies found in the Torslunda parish on the Swedish island Öland. They display figures in relief, representing what are presumed to be traditional scenes from Germanic mythology. 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, Valsgärde, and Sutton Hoo. Two of the plates may have been made as casts of existing pressblech foils.

Discovery

The plates were discovered in a cairn 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 plates have been dated to the Vendel Period of the 6th and 7th centuries.

Description

Each plate contains a different mythological design, traditionally labeled:

The warriors in 108869_HST are depicted as wearing Germanic boar helmets.

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. This recalls the one-eyed Norse god Odin, 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 he. He is depicted along with a wolfman, interpreted as a berserker, specifically a Úlfhéðinn (a wolf warrior). The latter is perhaps a pars pro toto embodying the wolf-warriors led in ecstatic dance by the god of frenzy.

Bibliography

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