The Icelandic Phallological Museum is probably the only museum in the world to contain a collection of phallic specimens belonging to all the various types of mammal found in a single country.

Phallology is an ancient science which, until recent years, has received very little attention in Iceland, except as a borderline field of study in other academic disciplines such as history, art, psychology, literature and other artistic fields like music and ballet. .
Now, thanks to The Icelandic Phallological Museum, it is finally possible for individuals to undertake serious study into the field of phallology in an organized, scientific fashion.

The Icelandic Phallological Museum contains a collection of two hundred and nine penises and penile parts belonging to almost all the land and sea mammals that can be found in Iceland. Visitors to the museum will encounter fifty five specimens belonging to sixteen different kinds of whale, one specimen taken from a rogue polar bear, thirty-six specimens belonging to seven different kinds of seal and walrus, and one hundred and fifteen specimens originating from twenty different kinds of land mammal: all in all, a total of two hundred and nine specimens belonging to forty six different kinds of mammal. It should be noted that the museum has also been fortunate enough to receive legally-certified gift tokens for four specimens belonging to Homo Sapiens. Besides there are some twenty-three folklore specimens and forty foreign ones. Altogether the collection contains 272 specimens from 92 different species of animals.

In addition to the biological section of the museum, visitors can view the collection of about three hundred artistic oddments and other practical utensils related to the museum´s chosen theme. .

History of the museum
The foundation was laid in 1974 when I got a pizzle or a bull´s penis. As a child I was sent into the countryside during summer vacations and there I was given a pizzle as a whip for the animals. At that time in 1974 I was living in the town of Akranes on the south-west coast, working as a headmaster in a secondary school. Some of my teachers used to work in summer in a nearby whaling station and after the first specimen they started bringing me whale penises, supposedly to tease me. Then the idea came up gradually that it might be interesting collecting specimens from more mammalian species.
    Collecting these organs progressed slowly in the beginning and in 1980 I had 13 specimens, four from whales and nine from land mammals. In 1990 there were 34 specimens and when the museum opened in Reykjavík in August 1997 the specimens were 62 in number,
    In the spring of 2004 the museum moved to the small fishing village of Húsavík, the whale watching capital of Europe.
    The reaction of the visitors has been very favourable. Over one hundred articles about the museum have been published in 26 countries all over the world. The number of visitors has been gradually increasing, being 11.000 in the summer of 2009.

The curator
The curator, Sigurdur Hjartarson (born 1941), is a historian with a BA degree from the University of Iceland and a M.Litt. in Latin American History from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He worked as a principal and teacher for 37 years, the last 26 years as a teacher of History and Spanish at the Hamrahlíd College in Reykjavík. He retired in 2004 and moved to Húsavík. He has written and translated some 20 books, chiefly on Latin American History, including textbooks in History and Spanish.

Payment Accepted: