The owner of a house in northern Jutland who was digging up his property for a new terrace discovered the largest Viking Age silver hoard ever found in Denmark. According to the museum conducting the excavation, more than 18.5 kg of silver has been found so far. The Local reports, writes UNN.
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It is reported that the man, who wished to remain anonymous, was clearing stones and gravel from his garden in Rebild when he came across a silver object.
"It was supposed to be just a few hours of hard work in the garden — removing stubborn grass, stones and gravel for a new tiled terrace — but it turned into the biggest surprise of my life," he said in a press release from the Museums of Northern Jutland.
"After half an hour of digging, my shovel hit something that made a strange sound. At first, I thought it was old iron, a piece of fencing wire or a fragment of old pottery, but when I started digging with my hands, I pulled metal objects out of the ground one after another. After a short period of careful work, I realized that they were jewelry, coins and silver ingots."
The hoard is three times larger than the largest one previously found in Denmark — the 6.5 kg Theslev hoard. It contains silver ingots, bracelets, 47 complete coins and coin fragments, a small Thor's hammer and various silver objects.
Around 320 objects with a total weight of 6.4 kg remained in the original clay vessel in which the hoard had been buried. The rest of the finds were discovered in the soil around it in the garden.
Torben Sarauw, head of the cultural heritage department and an archaeologist at the Museums of Northern Jutland, called the find "unique and impressive."
"This is a find of enormous significance for our understanding of the Viking Age in Denmark. Not only because of its size, but also because the hoard so clearly demonstrates how silver functioned as wealth and a means of payment during the Viking Age," he said.
Among other things, the hoard contains Arab and English coins, indicating Denmark's close ties with large parts of Europe and distant eastern territories during the Viking Age.
"The silver was hidden in Rebild, but it points to a much wider world. The coins testify to connections with the Islamic world in the east and England in the west," the archaeologist noted.