The world's first and largest find of bronze age lurs took place at Lynge in Allerød municipality in June more than 200 years ago. In 1797 the farmer Ole Pedersen found 6 lurs when he was digging peat in a little bog, called Brudevaelte, a bog which has now disappeared. The 5 lurs are at the National Museum in Copenhagen, whereas the 6th lur was presented to the Russian tsar in 1845, so today it can be seen at The Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

What is a lur?

The lur is a wind instrument of a left-wound or right-wound conic tube. At the thin end is a kettle-shaped mouthpiece, and at the thick end it is finished off with an ornamental plate. The lurs were used as ceremonial instruments during the bronze age. The 6 Brudevaelte lurs date back approximately to 800 - 700 BC. The lurs belong together two and two. To this very day 60 lurs have been found, most of them more or less well-preserved, some in fragments. Of these 60 lurs 37 were found in Denmark, the rest in the south of Norway and Sweden, the north of Germany and in Latvia. In the casting of the lurs the lost-wax or cire-perdu process was employed. The first lurs are imitations of oxhorn.

The name lur:

The original name of the bronze age instrument is not known today, nor was it in the beginning of the 19th century when historians wanted to register and cataloque the horns. In the Icelandic sagas the name lur was used for war-trumpets, which were supposed to call the warriors to battle, so for want of a better name the historians called the bronze age horns lurs. Unfortunately the lur known from the sagas was a straight instrument, made of wooden lists, bound with birch bark.

Bibliography:

The literature is available through the Library of Allerød.

Brudevæltelurerne
- verdens første og største lurfund.[ The lurs from Brudevaelte - the first and biggest find of lurs] 2005, 118 pages.
Editors: Per-Olof Johansson, Ole Høegh Post, Birthe Skovholm.
ISBN 87-88518-04-3,
Price DK kr. 235,- .
Buy it at LAFAK, Alleroed, Denmark

Broholm, H.C.:
Danmarks Bronzealder, Bd. 1-4
Nyt Nordisk Forlag, 1943 - 1949

Broholm, H.C.:
Lurfundene fra bronzealder
Nyt Nordisk Forlag, 1965

Broholm, H.C. et alter:
The lurs of the bronce age, 1949

Brøndsted, Johannes:
Danmarks Oldtid. Bd. 2: Bronzealderen,
2. udgave Gyldendal, 1966

Fredsjö, Å:
Hällristninger: Sverige
Stockholm Forum 1956

Jensen, Jørgen:
I begyndelsen. Fra de ældste tider til ca. år 250 f.Kr.
(bd. 1 af Gyldendals og Politikens Danmarkshistorie, Politiken, 1988)

Jensen, Jørgen:
Bronzealder, Bd 1-2
Sesam, 1979

Jensen, Jørgen:
Thomsens museum: Historien om Nationalmuseet

Articles:

Johansson, Per-Olof: Lurerne fra Allerød
Printed in : Drømmen om Allerød,
Lokalhistorisk Arkiv og Forening i Allerød Kommune, 1991.
same as En lur på Eremitagen

Lademann, Lisbeth:
"6 krumme Messing Horn"
(Nøglehullet 1989/2)
Lokalhistorisk Arkiv og Forening i Allerød Kommune.

Kramer, Finn Erik:
Brudevælte - en oldtidsbygd
(Nøglehullet 1997/1)
same as Oldtidsbygden

Lysdahl, Per m.fl.:
Lurparret fra Ulvkær i Vendsyssel
(Kuml Årbog fra Jysk Arkæologisk Selskab, 1990)
Information about the conservation, the restauration, X-ray analysis and pollen analysis of the lurs.

Lysdahl, Per:
Ulvkærlurerne: Det første lurpar fra Vendsyssel
(Vendsyssel Nu og Da, 1989/90)

Lysdahl, Per:
Fanfare
(Skalk 1989, nr. 4)
About theUlvkær-lurs

Madsen, Orla:
Lurparret fra "Folvisdam" (årsskrift fra Brædstrupsegnens Hjemstavnsforening, 1992)

Thrane, Henrik:
8 fynske bronzealderlurer og nogle lerstumper
(Fynske Minder, 1993)

Thrane, Henrik:
Bronzens mestre
(Skalk, 1994, nr. 2)

Phonogram:

Lund, Cajsa:
Fornordiske klanger.
Musica Sveciae, Svensk musikhistoria på fonogram (1987)

Nationalmuseet NM 67-001:
Klange fra Danmarks bronzealderlurer (Music blown on lurs from the Danish Bonze Age). Performed by Palmer Traulsen and G.A. Wilkenschildt. On 10” 33 1/3 rpm disc. Notes by Thorkild Ramskou (in Danish and English) 5 pp. illus.
review Author of Review: Jeremy Montagu
Ethnomusicology, Vol. 16, No. 3, Canadian Issue (Sep., 1972), pp. 575-577
doi:10.2307/850223