Iceland does weird brilliantly. Glaciers? Check. Geysers? Obviously. Northern Lights? Standard. But tucked into Reykjavik’s harbour district sits something you won’t find anywhere else on Earth: the Icelandic Phallological Museum – the world’s only museum dedicated entirely to real penises and not just pictures or models!
Over 200 specimens. Every Icelandic mammal represented. And it all started with a dried bull’s penis used as a cattle whip…
How A Teaching Joke Became a 37-Year Obsession
In 1974, headmaster Sigurður Hjartarson received what his colleagues thought was a hilarious gift: a dried bull’s penis to use as a whip whilst working with cattle.
But the joke didn’t stop there.
Some of those same teachers worked at whaling stations during summer holidays. They kept bringing him specimens. What began as staffroom banter snowballed into a lifelong mission: collect a penis from every mammal in Iceland.
Thirty-seven years later, Sigurður had done exactly that.
His philosophy? “Collecting penises is like collecting anything. You can never stop, you can never catch up, you can always get a new one, a better one.” Hmmm!
From Microscopic to Absolutely Massive
The collection on offer spans the entire spectrum of mammalian anatomy.
The smallest specimen? A hamster’s baculum (penis bone) measuring 2 millimetres. You need a magnifying glass just to confirm it exists. The largest? A blue whale penis weighing 70 kilograms and measuring 170 centimetres.
But here’s the kicker—that’s just the tip…
The entire organ, when intact, would have been about 5 metres long and weighed between 350 and 450 kilograms. Iceland Review called it “a real Moby Dick,” which might be the most accurate museum review ever written.
The Invisible Elf Penis And Other Folklore Specimens
This is where things get properly Icelandic. The museum also holds 22 specimens from folklore – penises from elves, trolls, a merman and something called “The Nasty Ghost of Snæfell.”
The elf penis is catalogued as “unusually big and old.” You can’t see it, obviously. Icelandic folklore dictates that elves and trolls remain invisible. The museum respects the rules.
There’s also a penis from an Icelandic Christmas Lad, reportedly found dead at the foot of a mountain in 1985. A former mayor of Reykjavik presented it to the museum personally.
The Human Specimen Disaster
For decades, Sigurður searched for a human specimen to complete his collection.
In July 2011, he finally got one. Ninety-five-year-old Páll Arason – famous for his “prolific womanising”, wanted to immortalise his legacy. He donated his penis to the museum. But the penectomy didn’t go according to plan.
What arrived was a “greyish-brown shrivelled mass” pickled in formalin. Sigurður admitted his mistake: “I should have stretched it and sewn it at the back to keep it in more or less a normal position.”
The museum continues searching for “a younger and a bigger and better one.” Honesty matters, even in phallological curation.
The World’s Only Hereditary Penis Museum Operator
In 2012, Sigurður passed the collection to his son, Hjörtur Gísli Sigurðsson.
Slate described him as “the world’s only hereditary penis-museum operator.”
Wealthy buyers from Germany and the United Kingdom made offers. Hjörtur refused them all. His reasoning? “The museum has to be in Iceland.” Some things belong exactly where they are.
The museum now attracts roughly 70,000 visitors annually – more than 100 articles are written about it in nearly 30 countries. What started as a teaching colleague’s joke now draws tourists from all around the world.
Why You Should Actually Visit
This isn’t shock value for the sake of it. The museum delivers something most attractions can’t – something genuinely authentic that also comes with a giggle included!
Guided tours offer deeper dives into the collection’s history, the myths surrounding certain specimens, and the scientific research underpinning the work.
You can ask all those penis related questions you’ve been too polite to voice elsewhere.
Book Your Visit (Yes, Really)
If you’re heading to Reykjavik and want something beyond the standard tourist circuit, this is it. The museum sits in the harbour district.
You can book tickets directly below through GetYourGuide – skip the queue, guarantee your spot and prepare for the ‘biggest’ conversation starter of your Iceland holiday…!
