Man discovers Denmark’s largest Viking Age silver hoard while digging a terrace in his garden
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Man discovers Denmark’s largest Viking Age silver hoard while digging a terrace in his garden
Treasure trove comprises 700 10th-century objects and fragments, weighing almost 18.5kg
More pictures on the museum’s article page: nordjyskemuseer.dk/havearbejde-afsloerer-danmarks…
Also interesting near the bottom of the article:
Does this man get paid for any of this find or does a museum collect it and that’s that?
He gets a monetary reward.
By Danish law it’s “Danefæ”, and one gets compensated depending on the value of the find.
I had this borderline nightmare thought of people creating gold and silver bars out of historical finds if they didn’t. Good law.
Despite the generous law there has still been people that did exactly that. But to be fair, around the early 1800s Denmark was broke as hell, no meaningul government, a sickly king, so a lot of things went wrong there. Including the British coming over to trash the Danish fleet just for funsies. And Danish forests being down to just 1-2% of its whole territory (but we’re back to over 20% now).
The page doesn’t say what % of estimated value though.
I couldn’t find anything in Danish media either just now, just that the treasure weighed around 18½ kilo. That’s the biggest silver treasure found in Denmark to date. Regarding compensation/reward, maybe it has to be properly evaluated first, or maybe they just want to keep it private. The person that found it has chosen to be anonymous as far as I can tell.
Stardew valley ass discovery
Imagine carrying a purse with your valuables where just the content weighs around 18.5 kg + the weight of the clay container around it… Dude must have been really ripped.
Nobody did that. This is a treasure which was deliberately buried, it was not for carrying around.
Carrying that amount around would like entail hiring someone to carry if for you and a retinue of burly guards making sure the neighborhood doesn’t get any ideas.
The Swedes used to use big copper rings for money for a long time. Robbing a bank would be virtually impossible without a wagon train and or boat. Not sure when they started or stopped that though.
But in the olden days, the country of origin didn’t really matter for coins of precious metal. Spanish coins were used across europe, the pieces of 8 were popular, silver coinage, britain had their gold guneius.
The value was just based on the metal content, and countries didn’t have the means or will to forbid other currencies.
The copper rings were used in the bronze age and not just in Sweden, but basically everywhere in Europe.
In the olden days most countries struck coins of standard weights. So a coin is popular and then copied with different motives all over the place. The drachme, which initially was developed in Athens ended up as the first big standard coin spreading via Alexander the Great all over the place. The Sasanian Empire struck coins like those for example and that is centuries later. The Roman Solidus gold coin was very commonly used as a standard size in India as well.
This is cool, a small Thor’s hammer, and to wear a bracelet and touch the items that someone so long ago made and valued. Imagine the story, could have been from violence, ill gains and hidden there or hidden by the owners for safety?