Norse Ram, Carved Ram Skull

A carved ram skull, minus the ram

A real ram skull arrives heavy, fragile and with a history you did not ask for.

This is not bone. It is a faux ram skull, sculpted and made from scratch, so there is nothing to clean, nothing to declare and nothing that used to be an animal. It weighs less than a bag of sugar.

What it keeps is the thing people actually want from a ram skull, the horns. That full curl coming forward off the shelf, which is the reason anyone looks twice.

The vegvísir, and the rest of the knotwork

The forehead carries a vegvísir, the Icelandic wayfinding stave. Around it, Norse knotwork runs down the nasal bone and out across the jaw, cut into the form rather than printed onto it, so it moves as the light moves.

We are not going to explain the symbol to you. Either you already know what it is, or finding out is the better part of owning it.

The horns are the hard part

A spiral overhangs on every side at once. It is close to the worst shape you can hand a machine, which is why carved ram skull art usually comes with short, tidy, disappointing horns.

These do the whole curl. They are made in pieces, at an angle, and joined, and the jute wrap is where the joins are. Not decoration hiding a mistake: the horn meets the skull at the weakest point in the object, so the join is reinforced and then bound. You could find the seams underneath if you unwound it. We would rather say so than have you wonder.

You can read the build

Look along the curl and you will see the layers. We have not sanded that out and we have not photographed around it.

The face is smoothed and sealed where the detail lives. The horns keep the grain of how they were made. If you want something pretending to be carved from a solid block of bone, this is not it, and if you do want that, you can always buy a real one and deal with the quarantine form.

Norse, gothic, or just very good on a dark wall

Bone white against charcoal, black jute at the horns, nothing else going on. It sits as easily in a stripped-back modern room as it does somewhere deliberately gothic.

How it sits

This one is free-standing, not a wall mount. It stands upright on a shelf or a sideboard, resting back on the curl of the horns, which is how the photographs show it.

No keyhole hanger and no bracket in the box. A wall-mounted version is coming, and so is a stand. If you want either, say so and you will hear about them first.

Made in Australia

Drawn here, made here, finished here by hand. 3D printed in PLA (a bioplastic fermented from plant starch rather than refined from petroleum) then filled, sanded and sealed across the carved face.

Plant-based does not mean it composts. That wants an industrial composter at around 60 degrees for weeks. A plastic made from plants, not a plastic that disappears.

Finished by hand, so no two come out quite the same.

Looking after it

Dust with a soft dry brush rather than a cloth, a cloth catches in the knotwork and pulls.

PLA softens at about 60 degrees. Keep it off a wall that bakes in summer afternoon sun and away from a heater. Indoors only.

A display piece, not a toy. Stand it where nobody walks into it.

The numbers

• Dimensions to be confirmed once the first one is off the printer and measured. It is roughly the width of a large dinner plate across the curls and comes a long way forward off the wall.
• Under 1 kg.
• Printed in sections and bonded. Arrives as one piece. Nothing to assemble.
• PLA, filled, sanded and sealed by hand across the face.
• Free-standing. No hanger and no bracket on this one. A wall-mounted version is in the works.
• Numbered once. SPECIMEN 002. When the number is retired we say so, and it does not come back.

Postage

Calculated at checkout from your postcode. Couriers bill on cubic weight for anything large and light, so the curl of the horns makes a bigger box than the weight suggests.

Pickup is free.