Roskilde Jars

Danish artifact

Roskilde Jars
Artist	Peter Brandes
Location	Roskilde on the Danish island of Zealand

The Roskilde Jars (Danish: Roskildekrukkerne) stand on the square outside the railway station in Roskilde on the Danish island of Zealand. The three huge jars are 5 m (16 ft) in height and together weigh about 24 tons.^[1]

The jars are the work of the Danish abstract sculptor Peter Brandes (born 1944). They were commissioned by Elsebeth Stryhn of Stryhns Leverpostej, a local meat paste company, and presented to the city in 1998 on the occasion of Roskilde's 1,000th anniversary.^[2]

The jars stand in a shallow basin of water, in which they are reflected. The one closest to the station is inscribed with extracts from Henrik Norbrandt's poem Junker Kristoffer, a local hero buried in Roskilde Cathedral in 1363.^[3] The colourful glazed jars (two in tones of blue, the third in bronze) are reminiscent of Ancient Greek amphoras. They have accounted for several world records in pottery manufacture. Consisting of several hundred sections fired up to 1,300 °C at the Tommerup ceramics factory on the island of Funen, they were assembled by two men who stacked the sections on top of each other.^[4]^[5]

References

^ "The Roskilde Jars". Visit Roskilde. Retrieved 11 January 2015.
^ "Vandskulpturer Roskildekrukkerne" (in Danish). Kunst i Roskilde. Retrieved 11 January 2015.
^ "Junker Christoffer" (in Danish). Roskilde historie. Retrieved 11 January 2015.
^ Henrik Most (19 July 1999). "Himmelske krukker". Kristeligt Dagblad (in Danish). Retrieved 11 January 2015.
^ Lise Lotte Nielsen (26 February 2003). "Fra Mols til krukkernes". Berlingske (in Danish). Retrieved 11 January 2015.