Angul Hammerich and the Bronze Lurs. To Play or to Display

Introduction The present article deals with the reception history of the bronze lur from an archival and museum history perspective. However, sources from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries held by the National Museum of Denmark reveal surprisingly little evidence about these characteristic musical instruments and their relatively new life as museum objects. It is presumed that these instruments from Nordic prehistory were a cult symbol of the Sun, and that they were probably played to worship it. Nevertheless, it is impossible to say anything about how these instruments were played, nor how they sounded 3000 years ago. The bronze lurs are a particularly Nordic phenomenon, and they are likely to have served as status symbols. The first pair of bronze lurs was unearthed in Denmark in the bog of Brudevaelte in 1797. 2 The original name of these ancient instruments remains unknown. In the nineteenth century, the S-shaped natural trumpet with a conical bore was given the name "lur"-a word with roots in the Nordic sagas that was adopted from the wooden lur of the Viking Age (800-1050ad). This could to some extent explain the great historical confusion between the bronze lurs and the Viking Age, a misinterpretation with roots in the first part of the nineteenth century. 3