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While digging in their backyard, an accidental archaeologist in Denmark unearthed 18.5 kilograms (40.7 pounds) of silver treasure. The chance discovery is the largest known silver hoard from the Viking Age in the country and could prove invaluable in understanding this chapter of history.
The treasure trove consists of 700 silver objects, including silver bars, bracelets, dozens of coins, a small Thor's hammer, and various cut objects.
These kinds of silver artifacts were often used as a means of payment and a store of value – essentially a form of proto-money.
It's anyone's guess why a Viking decided to hide the stash in a field, but it recently made one modern-day Dane, who was building a new terrace in a private garden in Rebild, very happy.
“It should have just been a few hours of hard gardening work removing stubborn grass, stones and gravel for a new tiled terrace, but it turned out to be the biggest surprise of my life," the finder of the treasure, who wished to remain anonymous, said in a statement.
“After half an hour of digging, my grip hit something that made a strange sound. At first I thought it was old iron or fence wire and some potsherds, but when I started digging with my hands, I was suddenly able to fish one metal object after another out of the ground. After a short period of careful work, I realized that it was jewelry, coins, and silver bars.”
Around 320 of the objects were found within the original clay vessel, while the rest were scattered among the surrounding soil. All in all, the loot is three times bigger than the previous record haul, which weighed approximately 6.5 kilograms (14 pounds).
One curious piece of treasure even has runes engraved on it that the Museums of North Jutland suggested could be translated as "hutu", which may be a name or ownership mark.
Archaeologists reckon it dates to the 10th century, right when the Viking Age was reaching its climax. This estimate is based on two Anglo-Saxon silver pennies in the collection that were minted under King Edward the Elder, who reigned from 899 to 924 CE.
While record-breaking, the find is not wholly unprecedented. Large hoards of silver treasure, also dating from the 10th century CE, have been found in the local area before, suggesting Rebild was once an important part of the Viking Age economy and trade networks.
"The new silver treasure shows that the Rebild area was not a peripheral region, but part of the large economic and cultural connections that linked Scandinavia with the areas around the Baltic Sea and the Islamic world to the east, as well as with the North Sea area, England and western Europe to the west," said Torben Sarauw, cultural heritage manager and archaeologist at the Museums of North Jutland.
Sarauw also noted that the coins only made up a small part of the haul, and the silver bars and jewelry would have been worth more by weight, hinting at how wealth was stored and organised in Viking Denmark.
"This is a find of great importance for our understanding of the Viking Age in Denmark. Not just because of its size, but also because the treasure so clearly shows how silver functioned as wealth and a means of payment in the Viking Age. It's like finding a safe from the Viking Age,” he said.
But where were all the horned helmets, we hear you ask?
Surprisingly, only two near-complete Viking helmets have ever been found, neither of which were adorned with horns. IFLScience recently wondered why this was the case, so we asked an expert from the Historical Museum and the Museum of the Viking Age in Oslo, who dished the dirt.
