Portal:Denmark
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The Kingdom of Denmark (Danish: Kongeriget Danmark) is smallest and southernmost Nordic country. It is also the oldest. Located north of its only land neighbour, Germany, southwest of Sweden, and south of Norway, it is located at in northern Europe. From a cultural point of view, Denmark belongs to the family of Scandinavian countries although not located on the Scandinavian Peninsula. The national capital is Copenhagen. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea. The country consists of a large peninsula, Jutland, which borders northern Germany, plus a large number of islands, most notably Zealand, Funen, Vendsyssel-Thy, Lolland, and Bornholm as well as hundreds of minor islands often referred to as the Danish Archipelago. Denmark has historically controlled the approach to the Baltic Sea, and these waters are also known as the Danish straits. Denmark has been a constitutional monarchy since 1849 and a parliamentary democracy since 1901. Denmark became a member of the European Union in 1973. The Kingdom of Denmark also encompasses two off-shore territories, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, both of which enjoy wideranging home rule. Both the Danish monarchy and the national flag have been referred to as the world's oldest of their kind although the former status is disputed by Japan. Selected article
The Golden horns of Gallehus were two golden horns, one shorter than the other, discovered in South Jutland, Denmark. The horns were believed to date to the fifth century (Germanic Iron Age). The horns were made of solid gold and constructed from rings, each covered with figures soldered onto the rings, with yet more figures carved into the rings between the larger figures. These figures probably depict some actual events or Norse saga which is now unknown to us. The most probable theory is that the illustrations come from Celtic mythology rather than Norse: the horns portray a man with horns and a necklace, very similar in appearance to the Celtic god Cernunnos (especially compared to the Cernunnos portrait on the Gundestrup cauldron, also found in Denmark), and several iconographic elements such as a he-goat, snakes and deer, commonly associated with Cernunnos. Several other archaeological findings from southern Scandinavia also show influence from Celtic religion. However, the connection between the Cernunnos name (from a find in Paris) with the Danish/Anglian horns and the Thracian cauldron is entirely speculative. The horns are believed to originate with the Angles, but several theories of their origins exist. The horns have probably been used for ritual drinking and subsequently sacrificed in the earth or buried as a treasure, though this is also uncertain. Similar horns of wood, glass, bone and bronze have been found in the same area, some obviously used for blowing signals rather than drinking. Both horns had been the same length, but the narrow end of the second (short) horn was plowed up and recovered prior to 1639, and the gold was melted down and lost. Selected biography
Bertel Thorvaldsen (November 19, 1770 - March 24, 1844) was a Danish sculptor. Thorvaldsen is normally believed to have been born in Copenhagen in 1770 (according to some accounts in 1768), the son of an Icelander who had settled in Denmark, and there carried on the trade of a wood-carver. An alternative Icelandic account argues that he was born in Iceland. He attended Copenhagen's Royal Danish Academy of Art (Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi), winning all the prizes including the large Gold Medal. As a consequence, he was granted a Royal stipend, enabling him to complete his studies in Rome, where he arrived on March 8, 1797. Thorvaldsen's first success was the model for a statue of Jason, which was highly praised by Antonio Canova, the most popular sculptor in the city. In 1803 he received the commission to execute it in marble from Thomas Hope, a wealthy English art-patron. From that time Thorvaldsen's success was assured, and he did not leave Italy for sixteen years. In 1819 he visited his native Denmark. Here he was commissioned to make the colossal series of statues of Christ and the twelve Apostles for the rebuilding of Copenhagen's Church of Our Lady, now Copenhagen Cathedral. This work between 1817 and 1829, after its having been destroyed in the British bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807. These were executed after his return to Rome, and were not completed till 1838, when Thorvaldsen returned to Denmark. He died suddenly in the Copenhagen Royal Theatre on March 24, 1844, and bequeathed a great part of his fortune for the building and endowment of a museum in Copenhagen, and also left to fill it all his collection of works of art and the models for all his sculptures very large collection, exhibited to the greatest possible advantage. Thorvaldsen is buried in the courtyard of this museum, under a bed of roses, by his own special wish.
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