Icelandic Phallological Museum

This storefront museum in the major shopping area of downtown Reykjavik, Iceland, displays the male reproductive organ of almost every land and sea mammal in Iceland — and several more from outside this northern island nation.

It devotes itself to phallology, the scientific study of the male member, and includes 282 specimens from 93 species of animals, most of them preserved in jars of formaldehyde or dried and displayed on the wall or in glass cases. The smallest, the baculum (penis bone) of a hamster, measures 0.08 of an inch and must be viewed with a magnifying glass, while the largest, from a blue whale, spans 67 inches — and that’s just the tip. Other animals represented in the collection include an African elephant, polar bear, seal, mouse, walrus, moose, giraffe and weasel. Five human donations have been pledged by men from Germany, England and the U.S. upon their deaths.

The museum’s founder, historian Sigurdur Hjartarson, says his interest in phallology began when he received a pizzle — a dried bull’s penis made into a whip — while on summer vacation in the Icelandic countryside. Later, as headmaster of a secondary school, he was given specimens from a nearby whaling station, initially as a joke. His collection grew and was passed to his son, now the curator of the museum, which draws more than 12,000 people a year.