Cool Finds

Curator Rediscovers Tenth-Century ‘Portrait’ of a Viking With an ‘Unusual, Ornate Hairstyle’

First unearthed in 1797, the small gaming piece was kept in storage at the National Museum of Denmark for more than 200 years until curator Peter Pentz found it

Sarah Kuta | Daily Correspondent

September 10, 2025

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Curator Peter Pentz was exploring the vast archives of Denmark’s National Museum when he stumbled upon an unusual artifact: a small figurine depicting a well-groomed man.

Now, Pentz says the trinket is the first-known “portrait” of a Viking. He describes the item—which is on display in the museum’s ongoing exhibition about Viking sorceresses—in a paper published August 11 in the journal Medieval Archaeology.

“When I came across him in one of our storage rooms a few years ago, I was really surprised—he just sat there, looking directly at me, and I had never before seen such a Viking, not in the many years I’ve been at the museum,” Pentz says in a statement.

The figurine, which was probably created sometime during the tenth century, stands a little more than an inch tall.

It was first discovered in 1797 in a Viking warrior horse grave in Viken, near the Oslofjord in southeastern Norway. At the time, it was registered with the museum and stashed away for safekeeping. But it appears curators had largely forgotten about it for the past two centuries, until Pentz started poking around.

Experts suspect the figurine was once used to play a popular Viking board game called Hnefatafl, which was somewhat similar to chess. It’s made of walrus ivory, which was one of the most expensive materials available during the Viking era, according to the museum.

The gaming piece depicts the head and torso of a man, with a long, braided goatee dangling from his chin, as well as sideburns and a large imperial mustache. His hair is parted down the middle and has been cropped at the back. The sides of his hairdo are wavy and short, leaving his ears visible.

“We haven’t had any detailed knowledge about Viking hairstyles, but here, we get all the details—even the little curl above the ear is marked,” Pentz says in the statement. “This is the first time we see a figure of a male Viking with his hair visible from all angles. It’s unique.”

Whoever created the figurine paired the man’s “unusual, ornate hairstyle” with a “shrewd expression,” according to the museum. Pentz was surprised by the man’s facial expression, as most Viking depictions of humans were simple and “not really human-like,” he tells Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“He is extremely detailed and he is so very expressive, displaying a mischievous—or even malicious—facial expression,” Pentz tells Live Science’s Tom Metcalfe.

Based on the man’s elegant coiffure, Pentz suspects he was an elite member of Viking society—maybe even a king. It’s possible the figure was meant to depict a specific king, Harald I (also known as Harald Bluetooth), the Viking king who ruled Denmark from around 958 to 985 C.E.

No matter who it was meant to represent, the diminutive gaming piece offers a rare glimpse of what Vikings really looked like.

“If you think of Vikings as savage or wild, this figure is proving the opposite, actually,” Pentz tells AFP. “He is very well-groomed.”

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.