The Turkish State media “The Daily Sabah” has an article about a “1,200-year-old Viking god Odin statuette seized in central Turkey”.
The article claims that it is a Viking Age statuette of Odin, found at the home of a smuggler. Looking at the item it’s clear that the statuette is not from the Viking Age. It’s clearly inspired by nineteenth-century Wagnerian ideas and the costume of it is all wrong. The shield is not a Viking age shield and the “barbarian clothing” has nothing to do with what someone from the Viking Age would associate with Odin (The god of the Chieftains).
10 minutes of googling also find many different versions of the statuette. It’s a nineteenth-century brass statuette of a Viking and its even part of a set of at least one more statuette. Below I have posted an image of one of the many internet auctions that sell these statuettes beside the picture from the Turkish article.
This page was deleted by a mistake at the end of 2019. This blog post is from the old page and has been reposted on the new page.