A metal detectorist discovered more than a half-dozen pieces of silver precious jewelry while checking out farmland in Denmark. (Image credit: Moesgaard Museum)
An university student in Denmark has actually uncovered a “magnificent silver treasure” of Viking Age precious jewelry that functioned as cash.
Gustav Bruunsgaard, a metal detectorist and archaeology trainee at Aarhus University, was checking out farmland near Elsted, a town north of Aarhus, when his metal detector started beeping. Upon digging into the soil, he found a single silver bracelet. A couple of days later on, he went back to the field, which was the website of a Viking Age settlement, and collected 6 more bracelets, according to an equated declaration from Moesgaard Museum in Højbjerg.
Bruunsgaard notified authorities to the finding, and specialists dated the products to the 800s, which would have been throughout the early Viking Age (A.D. 793 to 1066) in Scandinavia.
“The Elsted farm treasure is a wonderfully fascinating discover from the Viking Age, which links Aarhus with Russia and Ukraine in the east and the British Isles in the west,” Kasper H. Andersen, a historian at the museum, stated in the declaration. “In this method, the discover highlights how Aarhus was a main center in the Viking world, which went all the method from the North Atlantic to Asia.”
Related: What's the farthest location the Vikings reached?
The bracelets were a type of cash called hacksilver, an essential kind of currency throughout the Viking Age. At one time, the bracelets– which together weighed more than 1 pound (0.5 kg)– would have been “adjusted to a typical weight system” and were utilized “as a way of payment and deal” while showcasing “the owner's monetary capability,” according to the declaration.
The devices were likely produced in Denmark. One “coiled ring” looks like a design of bracelets from either Russia or Ukraine and was “mimicked in the Nordics.” The 3 “band-shaped, stamped rings” motivated comparable bracelets in Ireland, “where they ended up being really typical.”
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The silver treasure is presently on display screen at the Moesgaard Museum.
Jennifer Nalewicki is a Salt Lake City-based reporter whose work has actually been included in The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, Scientific American, Popular Mechanics and more. She covers a number of science subjects from world Earth to paleontology and archaeology to health and culture. Prior to freelancing, Jennifer held an Editor function sometimes Inc. Jennifer has a bachelor's degree in Journalism from The University of Texas at Austin.
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