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Stora Hammars stones


Coordinates: 57°51′10.7″N 19°01′43.2″E / 57.852972°N 19.028667°E / 57.852972; 19.028667

The Stora Hammars image stones are four Viking Age image stones located in Stora Hammars, Lärbro parish, Gotland, Sweden.

The four Stora Hammars image stones are phallic shaped. Similar combinations of death with this erotic symbology occur on other Gotland rune and image stones. The images on the Stora Hammars II and IV stones are very worn and not currently decipherable.

Depicted on the Stora Hammars I stone are six panels with mythological, religious and martial background, including panels depicting a woman between two men, a sacrifice scene with a Valknut over an altar, a woman standing between a longship manned with armed warriors and another group of armed men, and a battle scene. Because of the position of the woman in two of the panels, it has been interpreted as illustrating the legend of Hildr and its never-ending battle. The stone includes an image of a warrior about to be hanged from a tree with a Valknut nearby, considered to be Odin's cult symbol, giving validity to reports regarding human sacrifice in Norse paganism. Near the altar is a shaped stone, which one scholar has been suggested may be a cult stone similar to the Elgesem runestone.


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