Sperm Whale Vertebra

These great bones were once thought to be those of a giantess and were displayed in Visby Cathedral. They can be traced back to 1600 and the story about them was told in a chronicle written at the time of 1633. The story goes that the bones belonged to the giantess Visna who supposedly fought beside the mythological Danish king Harald Hildertand in the battle of Bråvalla. Big bones like these were often connected to mythological beliefs and are not terribly uncommon in church environments (Svanberg 2008). Today we have a different understanding but already back in 1741 Carl von Linné could establish that the bones were indeed a vertebra and scapula from a whale. We now know more specifically that they once belonged to a sperm whale though it is unclear from where it originated since they are not commonly found around the coast of Gotland (Svanberg 2008). The inscriptions seen on the bones are unfortunately difficult to interpret but the year of 1600 as well as 1632 is visible on the scapula (Svanberg 2008). These bones offer us an interesting perspective of how our mythologies were kept alive and how our understanding of the world we live in has changed. They have since been moved out of the cathedral and are now in the possession of the Gotland Museum.

Svanberg, I. 2008. Jungfru Visnas ben: en val i Visby. Gotländskt arkiv 80: 105-111 

Moa Gustafsson