A Norwegian man using a metal detector has found nine necklaces, three rings and 10 gold pearls that someone may have worn as showy jewelry 1,500 years ago.
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK — At first, the Norwegian man thought his metal detector was reacting to chocolate money buried in the soil. It turned out to be nine necklaces, three rings and 10 gold pearls that someone might have worn as delightful jewelry 1,500 years ago.
The rare find was made this summer by 51-year-old Erlind Bohr on the southern island of Reinsøe, near Stavanger. Burr bought his first metal detector earlier this year to keep his hobby after his doctor told him to go outside instead of sitting on the couch.
Finding “so much gold at the same time is very unusual,” said Ole Madsen, director of the University of Stavanger’s Archaeological Museum.
In August, Bohr began touring the mountainous island with his metal detector. A statement from the university said he initially found some scrap, but later discovered something “totally unreal” – the treasure weighing just over 100 grams (3.5 ounces).
Under Norwegian law, items from before 1537, and coins older than 1650, are considered property of the state and must be surrendered.
Associate Professor Haakon Ryersen of the museum said the gold pendants – which are flat, thin, one-sided gold medallions called “bracteates” – date back to about AD 500, the so-called migration period in Norway, which extends between 400 and about 550 years ago, when there was migration. widespread in Europe.
Ryersen said the gold pendants and pearls were part of a “very showy necklace” made by skilled goldsmiths and worn by the most powerful figures in society. “In Norway, a similar find has not been made since the 19th century, which is also a very unusual find in the Scandinavian context,” he added.
An expert in such pendants, Professor Sigmund Uhrl from the same museum, said that about 1,000 gold coins have been found so far in Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
He said the symbols on the pendants usually show the Norse god Odin healing his son’s sick horse. Uhrl said that in Reinswee’s models, the horse’s tongue hangs on gold pendants, and its “slumping posture and crooked legs show that it is injured.”
He added, “The symbol of the horse represents illness and distress, but at the same time it represents hope for recovery and new life.”
The find is set to be displayed at the Archaeological Museum in Stavanger, about 300 kilometers (200 miles) southwest of Oslo.
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