What started as a meager personal collectionThe Icelandic Phallological Museum is dedicated to collecting, studying and presenting actual phalluses and all things phallic
1974
The collection began when our founder and original curator, Sigurdur Hjartarson, worked as a headmaster in a middle-school in the town of Akranes. During a night out with his teachers, he lamented the waste in modern meat industry. Shortly after he received a bull penis pizzle. This became became an ongoing joke and as some of the teachers had summer jobs at a whaling station, Sigurdur received many large specimens.
1997
The museum opened in a small space downtown Reykjavík with 62 specimens along with multiple pieces of art and novelties, but Sigurdur has yet to obtain the entire Icelandic mammal fauna, including the elusive human. Initially locals are reluctant to pay the museum a visit, many presuming the exhibit to be explicit and not a serious phallus museum where visitors engage in phallology.
2011
Sigurdur finally gets a human specimen and thus completes his collection of the entire Icelandic mammal fauna. He retires and his son, Hjörtur, takes over as curator of The Icelandic Phallological Museum. The new curator moved the museum back to Reykjavík and modernized the presentation. The following years the number visitors increases dramatically as do donations to the museum.
1980
Sigurdur had amassed 13 phallic specimens, almost half of the Icelandic. It was probably around this time that he decided to complete the entire Icelandic mammal fauna, and in the following years collecting gained pace. As the living room became increasingly crowded with amputated phalluses, Sigurdur´s wife eventually told him he couldn´t keep the penises at the house anymore
2004
The museum relocated to a a larger show space in Húsavík, often called the capital of whale-watching. The collection kept growing with the addition of many foreign species and visitors to the museum increased, as well. Soon, a visit to the museum goes hand in hand with whale watching tourists and the foreign media begins to take notice.
2020
The popularity of the museum and size of the exhibit prompts the museum to move to its current location in the heart of Reykjavík, almost tripling the size of just the show space, and adding a phallic themed bistro. Presentation is elevated in every way and the reaction of visitors and media is extremely positive.