Icelandic Phallological Museum

28 September 2009

The Whale Museum is not the only museum that Húsavik is famous for. It is also home to the very unique Icelandic Phallological Museum. Despite usually being closed at this time of year, we were able to schedule a visit with the founder and curator Sigurður Hjartarson (who, as it turns out, studied Latin American History at the University of Edinburgh in the 60s). The museum started in the 70s as a hobby, with a single gifted bull’s penis, and has since grown to encompass over 200 specimens from over 90 different species - including some very impressive sperm whale exhibits.

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Edit: Dr Sigurjón Hafsteinsson, from the University of Iceland, gave a paper about the Phallological Museum and Neoliberalism at the CECA Conference I attended in Reykjavík a week later. Several delegates thought that the existence of the museum was a joke, but we were able to testify that we had indeed visited it!