In Finland, the largest Viking Age hoard has been found — more than 4 kg of coins lay underground for about 1,000 years
Kyiv • UNN
A hoard weighing about 4.5 kg, hidden 1,000 years ago, was discovered in a forest. The finds include thousands of coins, jewelry, and hacked silver.
In southern Finland, a metal detector helped uncover the country's largest Viking Age silver hoard: thousands of coins, pieces of jewelry, and fragments of silver weighing approximately 4.5 kg in total. The find dates to 1000–1050, Live Science reports, according to UNN.
Details
The hoard was divided into two parts and hidden in birch-bark containers. They were buried in a wooded area several meters apart, and the hiding places were marked with stones.
There are quite a lot of coins in this hoard. I haven't had time to look through all of them yet
Silver from different corners of the world
During an initial examination, researchers discovered coins from the territories of present-day Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The finds also include silver dirhams minted in the Islamic world.
Archaeologists also found so-called hacked silver—fragments of precious metal that could be cut into smaller pieces and used as a means of payment according to their weight during the Viking Age.
Researchers have yet to study the thousands of objects from the hoard in detail. Even now, the scale of the find makes it the largest known Viking Age silver hoard discovered in Finland.