Odin Pendant

Description

Gilded cast silver pendant. Front has worn relief decoration of Odin and his attendant ravens, Huginn and Muninn (Thought and Memory). Odin is rendered with a skull-like face and thin arms which clasp the birds to his breast. The face has one eye (the figure's right) clearly shown as a circular groove but the other is merely shown as a pair of worn horizontal grooves further down the cheek, suggestive of Odin’s blind eye. The head has a relief line over the top, now worn to a smudge on the figure's left (right as you look at the object); this line, which may represent hair, is touched by the beaks of the two birds; perhaps they are each whispering in Odin's ear as they inform him of their discoveries.

Object number

NOLMS:2016.026

Object

Pendant

Production date

Viking

Period

Viking

Material

Silver
Gold

Technique

Gilt
Cast

Dimensions

Length: 23.1mm
Diameter: 19.1mm
Depth: 1.6mm
Weight: 3.74g

Provenance

WINTERINGHAM
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