JELLING STONES (RUNESTEN)

The Jelling stones are world famous. In fact, these two runic stones have been inscribed on the Unesco World Heritage List since 1994. Both are linked to the Viking royal couple, Gorm the Old and Thyra. The smaller one was erected by the king for his wife (a very rare fact as traditionally only men had such an honor!). The inscription says " Gorm made this for Thyra his wife, the glory of Denmark".

This sentence is doubly important from a historical point of view, since the word Denmark is mentioned for the first time, and since it is from King Gorm onwards that the lineage of the kings of Denmark is continuously known. On the second stone, probably erected in 965, it is written: " King Harald erected these stones in honor of his father Gorm and his mother Thyra. King Harald who conquered Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christians. " Thus, Gorm's son expanded his father's territory and introduced Christianity (the oldest representation of Christ in Scandinavia can be seen on this stone). The top of the stone is at exactly the same distance from the two tops of the royal mounds.

After this tribute, Harald moved his capital to the new center of his kingdom, to Roskilde. As for this granite stone, it was probably originally polychrome. A cast painted in very bright colors, according to the hypotheses of a historian, is displayed in the new museum in Jelling.