Description
Both horns consisted of two layers of gold sheet, the inner sheet of lesser quality, amalgamated with silver, the outer sheet of pure gold. The outer sheet was constructed from a number of rings, each covered with cast figures soldered onto the rings, with yet more figures chased into the rings between the larger figures. The second horn bore an Elder Futhark inscription in Proto-Norse which is of great value for Germanic linguistics.
Both horns were once the same length, but a segment of the narrow end of the second (shorter) horn, which was missing when it was found (1734), had already been plowed up and recovered prior to 1639. It also was subsequently melted down and lost. The longer horn in its restored state was 75.8 cm in length, as measured along the outer perimeter; the opening diameter was 10.4 cm., and the horn weighed 3.2 kg.
Because the casts made of the horns were lost, it is uncertain whether the horns were simply curved or whether they had a winding, helix-like curvature like a natural ox-horn.
Read more about this topic: Golden Horns Of Gallehus
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“He hath achieved a maid
That paragons description and wild fame;
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)