Qualla: Golden Horns of Gallehus

Golden Horns of Gallehus: Introduction

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lestat (Jan Mehlich), CC BY-SA 3.0. Everything anyone knows about the Golden Horns of Gallehus comes from drawings. The objects themselves — two horns of sheet gold from the early fifth century, the most famous things ever pulled out of Danish soil — spent a single night in a goldsmith's kitchen in 1802 and came out as scrap. Scholars have argued for two centuries about figures they can only see through the hand of a copyist. The casts are gone too, so it is not even settled whether the horns were simply curved or spiralled like a real ox horn.

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Image: Lestat (Jan Mehlich) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Golden Horns of Gallehus: Two Finds, Ninety-Five Years Apart

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit J.R. Paulli, Public domain. On 20 July 1639, a girl named Kirsten Svendsdatter noticed something protruding from the ground near the village of Gallehus, north of Møgeltønder. She wrote to King Christian IV, who took possession of the horn and passed it to Prince Christian; the prince had a golden pommel ma...

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Image: J.R. Paulli | Public domain

Golden Horns of Gallehus: I, Hlewagastiz, Made the Horn

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Harald Slott-Møller, Public domain. Around the rim of the second horn ran a line of Elder Futhark: ek HlewagastiZ HoltijaZ horna tawidō. I, Hlewagastiz Holtijaz, made the horn. It is a small sentence carrying an enormous load. This is among the earliest Elder Futhark inscriptions to record a complete sentence in Pr...

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Image: Harald Slott-Møller | Public domain

Golden Horns of Gallehus: A Bestiary Nobody Can Agree On

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The horns were built from rings of gold, each carrying cast figures soldered on so they stood proud of the surface, with more figures chased into the metal between them. What those figures mean has been argued over ever since. Serpents wind across both horns in the animal style o...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Golden Horns of Gallehus: The Night of 4 May 1802

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Niels Heidenreich was a goldsmith and watchmaker from Foulum, and he was broke. On the night of 4 May 1802 he let himself into the storeroom at Christiansborg with forged keys, carried the horns home, and melted them down in his own kitchen. The gold became jewellery, shoe buckle...

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Image: Public domain

Golden Horns of Gallehus: Copies of Copies

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hjart, CC BY-SA 4.0. A set of plaster casts had been made for a cardinal in Rome, which would have preserved at least the shapes — but the ship carrying them had already gone down off the coast of Corsica. So the replacements were built from sketches, drawing after drawing standing in for the thing i...

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Image: Hjart | CC BY-SA 4.0