It was initially believed to be a practical joke when the 2.5 tonne bronze statue of King David disappeared from the stonework shop in Copenhagen where it was being repaired. But it now appears that an extremely ambitious thief drove a large truck to the site and used a crane to cart off the iconic statue, presumably for the value of the bronze.
The Dean of Our Lady’s Church, Anders Gadegaard, confessed to the Copenhagen Post, “At first we thought it was a joke. But it wasn’t. This is not something you can have standing in your window. Someone must have used a big truck and crane to get away with it.”
The bronze statue of King David once resided outside Our Lady’s Church, but had to be moved to a repair shop three months ago after a car crashed into its granite pedestal. The 3.5 metre-high statue and granite base were ready to be returned to Copenhagen’s cathedral when stonemason Flemming Brian Nielsen came to work and discovered it was gone.
It’s unlikely the statue, which was crafted by Danish sculptor Jens Adolf Jerichau in 1860, would be sold to a collector due to its high profile. But Dean Gadegaard fears it will be melted down for scrap. The statue of King David has stood at the cathedral’s entrance since 1860, and would be a great loss to the city’s landscape should it never return.
And David wasn’t a viking at all, really strange choice of picture!
What’s the stupid Viking figure doing next to this story???
The real King David Statue looks like this:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:King_David_Copenhagen.jpg