Sacred Art & Iconography
Tjangvide Image Stone
artwork
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
A carved limestone picture stone, about 1.7 metres tall, from Tjangvide farm on the island of Gotland, Sweden, discovered in 1844. Its upper panel is dominated by a rider mounted on an eight-legged horse, widely identified as Odin on Sleipnir, his mythic horse, though the same image is also read as any dead warrior arriving at Odin's hall of Valhalla, the two readings not being mutually exclusive in a scene meant to evoke the god's hall generally. A woman stands beside the rider extending a drinking horn, understood as a valkyrie welcoming the newly dead. The stone carries further, lower panels showing a ship under sail and other figures, typical of the Gotlandic picture-stone tradition. Since the late 19th century the Tjangvide rider has served as the emblem of the Swedish History Museum, which holds the original.
Facts
Custody
Current LocationSourced to the subject's own accountSwedish History Museum (Statens Historiska Museum), Stockholm 1 Current CustodianSourced to the subject's own account Custody HistorySourced to the subject's own accountDiscovered on the farm of Tjangvide, Gotland, in 1844; held by the Swedish History Museum, Stockholm, since, and used as the museum's own emblem since the late 19th century. 1 Origins
CreationSourced to the subject's own account Date of CreationSourced to the subject's own accountViking Age, about 700 to 900 AD 1 CountrySourced to the subject's own account Rights and Reproduction
Reproduction and CopyrightSourced to the subject's own accountThis atlas describes and cites the stone rather than reproducing a photograph of it. 1 Physical Form
MediumSourced to the subject's own account DimensionsSourced to the subject's own account Subject Matter
Depicted SubjectSourced to the subject's own accountOdin riding the eight-legged horse Sleipnir, met by a valkyrie offering a drinking horn. 2 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Sweden directly: "farm on the island of Gotland, Sweden, discovered in 1844."
Belongs to Tradition
Depicts
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.