Altonaer Museum

This guide to the Altonaer Museum in Hamburg opens with a question: why a sailor would risk his life to save a slab of painted wood. It follows the belief that carved figureheads, lashed beneath a ship's bowsprit, watched the water and calmed the waves, including the bearded figure known as the Seaman, found washed ashore in Denmark with its ship never identified. Look up at the largest hall of ship figureheads in Germany, a collection begun with a 1964 donation of eighteen figures.