In 2024, archaeologists digging at Fjörður, a farm in Seyðisfjörður, east Iceland, turned up a Viking Age toy, a thumb-sized stone animal, and it started an argument nobody has settled yet. Is it a pig? A bear? A dog? The experts can’t agree.
The Viking Age Toy’s Statistics
The carver shaped the figurine from a yellow-brown volcanic rock called palagonite tuff. It is about one inch (2.5 cm) in height and two inches (5 cm) in length. It can stand on all fours, but has a small chip in one of its ears. Someone carved the animal between 940 and 1000 C.E. In fact, that was within living memory of Iceland’s settlement.
Possible Animals
Each guess has a case. First, Iceland’s Norse settlers raised pigs. Polar bears also occasionally drift ashore on sea ice. Dogs sailed with the settlers, and one Viking woman was buried with hers. Horses were everywhere. And since the Norse traveled widely, the carver might have been remembering an animal seen on a voyage far from home.
Children’s Play and the Viking Age Toy
Anyone who has watched a child play has another theory: maybe the carver meant it to be vague. A little stone creature that could be a pig on Monday and a bear on Tuesday is, after all, a better toy than one that can only ever be a pig.
What do you think it is? Tell us in the comments.
About Fjörður Farm
The Fjörður farm is in Seyðisfjörður. Archaeologists planned to excavate the site for only two years, but it has yielded so much from the Viking era that archaeologists continue to explore the area. One of the other interesting finds, aside from the Viking age toy discovery, is a board game whose pieces come from the same kind of volcanic rock, very likely hnefatafl.
Sources
- Smithsonian Magazine, Archaeologists in Iceland Can’t Agree Which Animal This Mysterious Viking-Era Toy Depicts
- Scandinavian Archaeology, An excavation shows unexpected finds at Seyðisfjörður
