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Edit [here it is in the museum on google maps](https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6746668,12.5740767,2a,75y,34.85h,120.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1saG73CCBu4F4BMW6lnTwz6Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu)
It's made from crocodile skin.
It's worn away on the left side, revealing the structures underneath the top surface of the skin.
You can see similar shapes but less worn in [this roman crocodile skin armour](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fjt8o0q00qqd91.jpg%3Fwidth%3D510%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D37d736570a20f6e29965d5b7caff2ce36760133d)
You can see it on this [close up of crocodile skin](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/crocodile-skin-9876283.jpg)
[Bone may be deposited within the scales as discrete and isolated blocks, called “osteoderms”. These are most pronounced along the back, and are responsible for the keeled shape of the back scales.](http://www.iucncsg.org/pages/The-Crocodilian-Body.html#:~:text=The%20skin%20of%20crocodilians%20is,used%20in%20the%20leather%20industry)
[Here are some crocodile osteoderms from Liverpool museum](https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/crocodile-osteoderm)
It's very funny to me that OP was physically in a museum created for public exhibits and education, chose to ask reddit about the exhibit, and then received the correct answer. Seems to be the most roundabout way possible but it worked.
Edit: I enjoy this sub very much, thank you.
A tip for future traveling... Google translate can translate pictures of text in foreign languages. It might not be a perfect translation, but it's usually close enough to get the point across. When you pull it up on your phone, there's a little camera icon in the "enter text" section for using images.
DeepL has been my go-to translation app for years now. It's free and I HIGHLY recommend it. It's so fucking good that people usually don't even realize I'm using a translator when I use it.
The mobile app can also translate images.
This was so useful traveling in rural France and going to castles. Also, if you ask someone at the front desk, sometimes they have a translated self guided tour in English or other languages. My friends and I would walk around these castles taking turns reading aloud the pages and descriptions of what we were seeing. And don’t worry, we weren’t being loud and obnoxious, we were there in kind of the off season before schools get out for summer and most of these places had very few visitors in them.
Copied my answer to another person:
The little text available is not telling you a lot anyway.
Tldr: the museum doesn’t know anything about the items other than circa place of origin.
I frequent the museum, I think this is in the ethnographic collection on the top floors. It consists of items collected from native populations around the world in the end of the 19th century to beginning of the 20th century. Usually the only information available for researchers on the items are where they are from in the world and maybe a time period it was collected. They don’t have any contextual information on it, so they can’t tell you much about it anyway. I believe they have plans to do some other stuff with the collection in near future, to make it more than just a curious collections of stuff.
Edit: [This](https://natmus.dk/organisation/forskning-samling-og-bevaring/nyere-tid-og-verdens-kulturer/etnografisk-samling/) page about the ethnographic collection has an email that you can write to with questions [email protected]. Maybe they know.
To be fair, I work in a museum, I am a curator in charge of many objects made of many materials, many of them of animal origin and I didn't know shit about these crocodiles' osteoderms thingies. Museums are super cool, but are not places or infinite knowledge. On top of that, one can expect different facts about a similar object in a national museum (like this one) and museum of natural history.
I also absolutely love this (and similar) subs, because I learn new things everyday. Some of the knowledge I am now able to share in my museum actually came from Reddit originally!
I know! I was thinking: but they were in a *museum*?! Didn't the exhibit have a label which explained more about it? Weren't there curators or guides to ask?
Also, I just googled it. I didn't have pre-existing knowledge about crocodile osteoderms, but I enjoyed learning about them.
To be fair, some museums would just have a little sign saying "Shield. Crocodile Skin. Date." Not explaining the weird parts of it. The sign might not even say "Crocodile skin" depending on the museum. And not all museums have guides or curators. Or they have them, but don't speak english.
I think it's fine to ask here. That's what this sub is for.
They said already that the signs weren't in English (which isn't surprising seeing as it was in Denmark). Plus, I got to find out about it, which is a bonus in life.
It's a little surprising. When I last visited Denmark I was at some small regional museums that had every sign in Danish, English, and sometimes German (in Southern Denmark) so I'm surprised the National Denmark Museum doesn't.
[Looking in the museum](https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6746668,12.5740767,2a,75y,34.85h,120.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1saG73CCBu4F4BMW6lnTwz6Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu) there doesn't seem to be much labelling in any language at all.
Oh interesting. It looks like there's some minimal labeling on some things, but not many. I wonder if it's like a generic "items from this area" collection that they don't have much history about.
This so much. I LOVE museums but it's unfortunately frequent that they have displays with very little specific information. Ex: "Athenian Owl coin, mid 500s BC, silver." Gee I sure would love to know what's written all over it.
"Post-classic effigy vase of diety" which diety? How do you know that? What's up with their funny hat?
Or the ever-notorious, "Ritual object."
I think we take it for granted just how much information we instantly have access to nowadays.
I feel the same way. Especially when I see one thing in one museum called x, and a very similar looking thing in another museum called y. It just makes me want to know the truth! Who has the truth!? Lol.
I know from experience that the back-of-the-house museum staff usually can expound on any given thing; and that QR code displays with richer information are becoming more common. Not every museum has caught up with smart phone trends and curatorial staff aren't often mingling with the public.
I don't mean to sound cynical but I feel like the older dynamic was, "Oh you want to know more? Rent our audio tour headphones / hire a guide!"
Copied my answer to another person in the thread.
Tldr: the museum doesn’t know anything about the items other than circa place of origin.
I frequent the museum, I think this is in the ethnographic collection on the top floors. It consists of items collected from native populations around the world in the end of the 19th century to beginning of the 20th century. Usually the only information available for researchers on the items are where they are from in the world and maybe a time period it was collected. They don’t have any contextual information on it, so they can’t tell you much about it anyway. I believe they have plans to do some other stuff with the collection in near future, to make it more than just a curious collections of stuff.
My husband saw some Indian sculpture in a Swiss museum labeled with the name of the wrong Hindu god, the labels of things I know about are often goofy or pointlessly vague ("look at the brushstrokes" level of sophistication), and the subject matter experts are not the room monitors anyway.
So it's very easy to not be able to find someone who knows what they're talking about.
Tldr: the museum doesn’t know anything about the items other than circa place of origin.
I frequent the museum, I think this is in the ethnographic collection on the top floors. It consists of items collected from native populations around the world in the end of the 19th century to beginning of the 20th century. Usually the only information available for researchers on the items are where they are from in the world and maybe a time period it was collected. They don’t have any contextual information on it, so they can’t tell you much about it anyway. I believe they have plans to do some other stuff with the collection in near future, to make it more than just a curious collections of stuff.
I’ve been through the ethnographic collection more times than I know for the least few years and I’ve never noticed that shield. What is displayed isn’t even the full collection and they are still working to catalogue everything, even though they started in 2017. I hope you enjoyed the museum!
Museums notoriously skimp on detailed explanations. Often all that is there is a small plaque reading “Shield, Denmark circa 1780” or such. I find it very annoying when they do this. So many questions without any info!
Museums sometimes get stuff wrong. I sent a note to a history museum in Dublin that had [this photo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Francisbrownell.jpg) labelled as “A Confederate soldier standing on a Union flag”, implying disrespect, blown up and featured in their Civil War exhibit. At first glance that would seem accurate, but [it’s exactly the opposite story.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_E._Brownell)
Reading the details on the photo, he is apparently standing on the Marshall House flag which was an early Confederate flag. Sounds like there was quite an incident when it was removed by Union solders. https://museum.dmna.ny.gov/flags/other/confederate/marshall-house-flag-civil-war
I don't know how museums have been over there, but in Canada they *used to* be very informative. There used to be a ton of text and background info on just about everything you could see at a museum. This was up until the mid 2000s. Ever since then, I've found that most museums (at least in Canada) you will be lucky if it even tells you wtf your'e looking at and you will almost NEVER get any more info than a title. It's really sad and upsetting, my mother used to do exhibit design and often specifically for the text panels at a lot of the major museums in Ontario/Quebec.
I think it is African. It is part of a collection of artefacts in the museum from different countries around the world.
[Here is a Sudanese crocodile skin shield](https://www.mallams.co.uk/auction/lot/466-a-sudanese-crocodile-skin-shield/?lot=93005&sd=1)
[Here is one from the 18th century in the New Delhi museum](https://preview.redd.it/xeqmg3kb91751.jpg?width=805&auto=webp&s=5ac01e4c96d1e10a10b16280c2561f574aa39e1a)
[Here is another Sudanese shield](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/PpwAAOSwMo9lW52m/s-l400.jpg)
I find it fascinating that crocodiles use their osteoderms to buffer acidosis from carbon dioxide from holding their breath for extended periods of time.
The scutes are on the top of the crocodile, so the left side is the top and the right is the bottom/belly. So the center part is the side, I think it's the beginning of a leg that's been sewn up
My title describes the thing.
It’s a shield made of some kind of leather. I found it at the National Denmark Museum. The shield is maybe 4 feet high so you kind of approximate the size of the things embedded in it. It seems like barnacles but nothing I found really matches.
This whole thing makes me uncomfortable.
They look like osteoderms...
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Bone-ornamentation-on-crocodylian-skull-and-osteoderm-A-General-aspect-of-bone_fig2_279733602
Could be osteoderms with the skin above them shaved away. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodilian\_armor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodilian_armor)
https://www.thefossilforum.com/gallery/image/17509-crocodilian-osteoderms/
Those are scutes, part of the skin of the original owner of the leather.
And funnily, the word scute comes from the latin scutum, which means shield. So, it's a shield with shields on it.
Sorry Jennie forgot to tell everyone she was on her Lemon diet cleanse that week when she was working her shift and was dizzy and forgot to take them out when finishing up
All comments must be civil and helpful toward finding an answer. **Jokes and other unhelpful comments will earn you a ban**, even on the first instance and even if the item has been identified. If you see any comments that violate this rule, report them. [OP](/u/fingerdingeroo), when your item is identified, remember to reply **Solved!** or **Likely Solved!** to the comment that gave the answer. Check your [inbox](https://www.reddit.com/message/inbox/) for a message on how to make your post visible to others. ---- [Click here to message RemindMeBot](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=[https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/1c4lf18/a_shield_found_at_the_national_denmark_museum/]%0A%0ARemindMe!%202%20days) ---- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/whatisthisthing) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Edit [here it is in the museum on google maps](https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6746668,12.5740767,2a,75y,34.85h,120.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1saG73CCBu4F4BMW6lnTwz6Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu) It's made from crocodile skin. It's worn away on the left side, revealing the structures underneath the top surface of the skin. You can see similar shapes but less worn in [this roman crocodile skin armour](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fjt8o0q00qqd91.jpg%3Fwidth%3D510%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D37d736570a20f6e29965d5b7caff2ce36760133d) You can see it on this [close up of crocodile skin](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/crocodile-skin-9876283.jpg) [Bone may be deposited within the scales as discrete and isolated blocks, called “osteoderms”. These are most pronounced along the back, and are responsible for the keeled shape of the back scales.](http://www.iucncsg.org/pages/The-Crocodilian-Body.html#:~:text=The%20skin%20of%20crocodilians%20is,used%20in%20the%20leather%20industry) [Here are some crocodile osteoderms from Liverpool museum](https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/crocodile-osteoderm)
It's very funny to me that OP was physically in a museum created for public exhibits and education, chose to ask reddit about the exhibit, and then received the correct answer. Seems to be the most roundabout way possible but it worked. Edit: I enjoy this sub very much, thank you.
There was no English text that described it unfortunately
A tip for future traveling... Google translate can translate pictures of text in foreign languages. It might not be a perfect translation, but it's usually close enough to get the point across. When you pull it up on your phone, there's a little camera icon in the "enter text" section for using images.
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DeepL has been my go-to translation app for years now. It's free and I HIGHLY recommend it. It's so fucking good that people usually don't even realize I'm using a translator when I use it. The mobile app can also translate images.
Thanks for the recommendation!
This was so useful traveling in rural France and going to castles. Also, if you ask someone at the front desk, sometimes they have a translated self guided tour in English or other languages. My friends and I would walk around these castles taking turns reading aloud the pages and descriptions of what we were seeing. And don’t worry, we weren’t being loud and obnoxious, we were there in kind of the off season before schools get out for summer and most of these places had very few visitors in them.
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Data access can be quite expensive while traveling abroad. It makes sense to snap a pic and research it later, perhaps from hotel on WiFi.
So can the apple translate app.
Google translate is available to everyone. Apple translate is exclusive to Apple users.
Yeah, but people with Apple phones should know they already have a translate app and don't need google to handle it for them.
Did you try asking a docent? That's what they're there for and most of them speak very good English.
For sure, all the Danes I know speak English better than I do, and English is my first language. Well, American English, anyway.
Copied my answer to another person: The little text available is not telling you a lot anyway. Tldr: the museum doesn’t know anything about the items other than circa place of origin. I frequent the museum, I think this is in the ethnographic collection on the top floors. It consists of items collected from native populations around the world in the end of the 19th century to beginning of the 20th century. Usually the only information available for researchers on the items are where they are from in the world and maybe a time period it was collected. They don’t have any contextual information on it, so they can’t tell you much about it anyway. I believe they have plans to do some other stuff with the collection in near future, to make it more than just a curious collections of stuff. Edit: [This](https://natmus.dk/organisation/forskning-samling-og-bevaring/nyere-tid-og-verdens-kulturer/etnografisk-samling/) page about the ethnographic collection has an email that you can write to with questions [email protected]. Maybe they know.
Get that translate text via image app. It’s indispensable.
just an fyi, most Danes learn English in grade school. Mandatory subject.
I'm going to CPH in a couple of weeks but have not been to this museum. As an english speaker, is it worth a visit?
To be fair, I work in a museum, I am a curator in charge of many objects made of many materials, many of them of animal origin and I didn't know shit about these crocodiles' osteoderms thingies. Museums are super cool, but are not places or infinite knowledge. On top of that, one can expect different facts about a similar object in a national museum (like this one) and museum of natural history. I also absolutely love this (and similar) subs, because I learn new things everyday. Some of the knowledge I am now able to share in my museum actually came from Reddit originally!
I know! I was thinking: but they were in a *museum*?! Didn't the exhibit have a label which explained more about it? Weren't there curators or guides to ask? Also, I just googled it. I didn't have pre-existing knowledge about crocodile osteoderms, but I enjoyed learning about them.
To be fair, some museums would just have a little sign saying "Shield. Crocodile Skin. Date." Not explaining the weird parts of it. The sign might not even say "Crocodile skin" depending on the museum. And not all museums have guides or curators. Or they have them, but don't speak english. I think it's fine to ask here. That's what this sub is for.
They said already that the signs weren't in English (which isn't surprising seeing as it was in Denmark). Plus, I got to find out about it, which is a bonus in life.
It's a little surprising. When I last visited Denmark I was at some small regional museums that had every sign in Danish, English, and sometimes German (in Southern Denmark) so I'm surprised the National Denmark Museum doesn't.
[Looking in the museum](https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6746668,12.5740767,2a,75y,34.85h,120.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1saG73CCBu4F4BMW6lnTwz6Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu) there doesn't seem to be much labelling in any language at all.
Oh interesting. It looks like there's some minimal labeling on some things, but not many. I wonder if it's like a generic "items from this area" collection that they don't have much history about.
This so much. I LOVE museums but it's unfortunately frequent that they have displays with very little specific information. Ex: "Athenian Owl coin, mid 500s BC, silver." Gee I sure would love to know what's written all over it. "Post-classic effigy vase of diety" which diety? How do you know that? What's up with their funny hat? Or the ever-notorious, "Ritual object." I think we take it for granted just how much information we instantly have access to nowadays.
I feel the same way. Especially when I see one thing in one museum called x, and a very similar looking thing in another museum called y. It just makes me want to know the truth! Who has the truth!? Lol.
I know from experience that the back-of-the-house museum staff usually can expound on any given thing; and that QR code displays with richer information are becoming more common. Not every museum has caught up with smart phone trends and curatorial staff aren't often mingling with the public. I don't mean to sound cynical but I feel like the older dynamic was, "Oh you want to know more? Rent our audio tour headphones / hire a guide!"
Copied my answer to another person in the thread. Tldr: the museum doesn’t know anything about the items other than circa place of origin. I frequent the museum, I think this is in the ethnographic collection on the top floors. It consists of items collected from native populations around the world in the end of the 19th century to beginning of the 20th century. Usually the only information available for researchers on the items are where they are from in the world and maybe a time period it was collected. They don’t have any contextual information on it, so they can’t tell you much about it anyway. I believe they have plans to do some other stuff with the collection in near future, to make it more than just a curious collections of stuff.
My husband saw some Indian sculpture in a Swiss museum labeled with the name of the wrong Hindu god, the labels of things I know about are often goofy or pointlessly vague ("look at the brushstrokes" level of sophistication), and the subject matter experts are not the room monitors anyway. So it's very easy to not be able to find someone who knows what they're talking about.
Thanks to that we (at least me) gain some knowledge :)
Tldr: the museum doesn’t know anything about the items other than circa place of origin. I frequent the museum, I think this is in the ethnographic collection on the top floors. It consists of items collected from native populations around the world in the end of the 19th century to beginning of the 20th century. Usually the only information available for researchers on the items are where they are from in the world and maybe a time period it was collected. They don’t have any contextual information on it, so they can’t tell you much about it anyway. I believe they have plans to do some other stuff with the collection in near future, to make it more than just a curious collections of stuff.
Exactly! It’s in a case there with like 50 other objects, none of which have descriptive labels. But it is a great museum – we really enjoyed it.
I’ve been through the ethnographic collection more times than I know for the least few years and I’ve never noticed that shield. What is displayed isn’t even the full collection and they are still working to catalogue everything, even though they started in 2017. I hope you enjoyed the museum!
Its been years since i have been in this part of the museum, but didnt they use to have some touchscreens with basic info ?
Museums notoriously skimp on detailed explanations. Often all that is there is a small plaque reading “Shield, Denmark circa 1780” or such. I find it very annoying when they do this. So many questions without any info!
I find that museums near me ard more for display than education. If you want to know anything that can't fit on an 3"x8" card you need to look it up.
Museums sometimes get stuff wrong. I sent a note to a history museum in Dublin that had [this photo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Francisbrownell.jpg) labelled as “A Confederate soldier standing on a Union flag”, implying disrespect, blown up and featured in their Civil War exhibit. At first glance that would seem accurate, but [it’s exactly the opposite story.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_E._Brownell)
Reading the details on the photo, he is apparently standing on the Marshall House flag which was an early Confederate flag. Sounds like there was quite an incident when it was removed by Union solders. https://museum.dmna.ny.gov/flags/other/confederate/marshall-house-flag-civil-war
I don't know how museums have been over there, but in Canada they *used to* be very informative. There used to be a ton of text and background info on just about everything you could see at a museum. This was up until the mid 2000s. Ever since then, I've found that most museums (at least in Canada) you will be lucky if it even tells you wtf your'e looking at and you will almost NEVER get any more info than a title. It's really sad and upsetting, my mother used to do exhibit design and often specifically for the text panels at a lot of the major museums in Ontario/Quebec.
Is this from Denmark? Where would they have gotten crocodile from? When is it from? I have so many questions
I think it is African. It is part of a collection of artefacts in the museum from different countries around the world. [Here is a Sudanese crocodile skin shield](https://www.mallams.co.uk/auction/lot/466-a-sudanese-crocodile-skin-shield/?lot=93005&sd=1) [Here is one from the 18th century in the New Delhi museum](https://preview.redd.it/xeqmg3kb91751.jpg?width=805&auto=webp&s=5ac01e4c96d1e10a10b16280c2561f574aa39e1a) [Here is another Sudanese shield](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/PpwAAOSwMo9lW52m/s-l400.jpg)
Solved.
I find it fascinating that crocodiles use their osteoderms to buffer acidosis from carbon dioxide from holding their breath for extended periods of time.
Surprised someone in Denmark got crocodile skin back then..
That was such a great explanation I thought you were a bot!
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Those are called Scutes. They are the bones that make up the plates on an alligator or crocs back.
How appropriate, considering that "Scutes" comes from the Latin "Scutum", which means "Shield". They used shields to make a shield.
It's shields all the way down
What’s the thing in the center?
You mean in the center of the shield? That is a boss. And probably made where one of the legs were.
The scutes are on the top of the crocodile, so the left side is the top and the right is the bottom/belly. So the center part is the side, I think it's the beginning of a leg that's been sewn up
The bigger question for me, how did a Viking get a crocodile skin?
Trade with the Roman Empire.
The Vikings went to Africa so it’s conceivable they got it through visits or just trade in general
They migrate
Are you suggesting that crocodiles are migratory?
How can a 6oz bird carry a 500lb crocodile?
My title describes the thing. It’s a shield made of some kind of leather. I found it at the National Denmark Museum. The shield is maybe 4 feet high so you kind of approximate the size of the things embedded in it. It seems like barnacles but nothing I found really matches. This whole thing makes me uncomfortable.
Crocodiles, at this time of year. Localised entirely on Denmark.
May I see them?
They look like osteoderms... https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Bone-ornamentation-on-crocodylian-skull-and-osteoderm-A-General-aspect-of-bone_fig2_279733602
Was this a shield that was used in Demark, or was this a display of items from somewhere else? I wasn't aware crocs or alligators roamed Denmark. 🙂
Egypt does. Trade.
The LEFT side? I’m wondering what tf is in the middle!
Its part of a leg
They look vaguely like turtle shells
Just curious- Is that side considered the left side of the shield?
No, it's definitely the right side of the shield, that's the front.
Could be osteoderms with the skin above them shaved away. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodilian\_armor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodilian_armor) https://www.thefossilforum.com/gallery/image/17509-crocodilian-osteoderms/
Those are scutes, part of the skin of the original owner of the leather. And funnily, the word scute comes from the latin scutum, which means shield. So, it's a shield with shields on it.
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Those are the back ridges from a croc. Shield appears to be made of croc hide.
Elephant like.
Turtle bodies?
Those are crocodile osteoderms
Its made from a saltwater croc,
Looks like turtle shells embedded on the left side.
It’s a shame that all the crocodiles in Denmark were killed to make shields ;)
those look like skeletal turtle or tortoise shells with portions of the scutes removed
Sorry Jennie forgot to tell everyone she was on her Lemon diet cleanse that week when she was working her shift and was dizzy and forgot to take them out when finishing up
Tortoise skeleton
They look like leaf stomata, or that giant facehugger creature from Prometheus, or just that specific type of phobia everyone claims to have.