COPENHAGEN, Denmark — At first, the Norwegian man thought his metallic detector reacted to chocolate cash buried within the soil. It turned out to be 9 pendants, three rings and 10 gold pearls somebody might need worn as showy jewellery 1,500 years in the past.
The uncommon discover was made this summer season by 51-year-old Erlend Bore on the southern island of Rennesoey, close to the town of Stavanger. Bore had purchased his first metallic detector earlier this 12 months to have a pastime after his physician ordered him to get out as a substitute of sitting on the sofa.
Ole Madsen, director on the Archaeological Museum on the College of Stavanger, stated that to search out “a lot gold on the identical time is extraordinarily uncommon.”
In August, Bore started strolling across the mountainous island along with his metallic detector. A press release issued by the college stated he first discovered some scrap, however later uncovered one thing that was “fully unreal” — the treasure weighing a bit of greater than 100 grams (3.5 oz).
Underneath Norwegian legislation, objects from earlier than 1537, and cash older than 1650, are thought-about state property and have to be handed in.
Affiliate professor Håkon Reiersen with the museum stated the gold pendants — flat, skinny, single-sided gold medals referred to as bracteates — date from round A.D. 500, the so-called Migration Interval in Norway, which runs between 400 and about 550, when there have been widespread migrations in Europe.
The pendants and gold pearls had been a part of “a really showy necklace” that had been made by expert jewelers and was worn by society’s strongest, stated Reiersen. He added that “in Norway, no related discovery has been made for the reason that nineteenth century, and it’s also a really uncommon discovery in a Scandinavian context.”
An skilled on such pendants, professor Sigmund Oehrl with the identical museum, stated that about 1,000 golden bracteates have to this point been present in Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
He stated symbols on the pendants often present the Norse god Odin therapeutic the sick horse of his son. On the Rennesoey ones, the horse’s tongue hangs out on the gold pendants, and “its slumped posture and twisted legs present that it’s injured,” Oehrl stated.
“The horse image represented sickness and misery, however on the identical time hope for therapeutic and new life,” he added.
The plan is to exhibit the discover on the Archaeological Museum in Stavanger, about 300 kilometers (200 miles) southwest of Oslo.