A person using a metal detector in Finland has found what is believed to be the biggest Viking Age silver hoard ever discovered in the country, a cache of close to 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) of coins and jewelry that was buried north of Helsinki.
Sept. 3, Kalle Lappinen discovered two deposits in a forest close to the town of Sysmä, some 95 miles (150 kilometers) from the capital. He got in touch with the Lahti Historical Museum right away, and archaeologists were on site for inspection and excavation the very next day.
Live Science spoke with Esko Tikkala, an archaeologist at the museum who excavated the hoard, via email. He said the coins and jewelry probably come from a period between A.D. 1000 and 1050. Still, the precise date of the burial is not yet known.
Two Deposits, One Site
Tikkala described the site as lying beside a rock outcrop in a forest near Sysmä. The treasure had been split into two distinct caches and placed in birch-bark containers.
Two stone markers stood apart from one another, enclosing two buried deposits some 18 inches (45 centimeters) beneath the surface, spaced roughly 39 feet (12 meters) distant. No human remains were found close by, though the wider region around them had not yet been examined thoroughly.
Over the past 10 years, Tikkala observed that several other buried hoards have been discovered in the same part of Finland.
Coins From Across Europe
The pieces of metal in the collection originated from regions that now make up Germany, Sweden and Great Britain. A few dirhams were included among them — silver coins produced in the Islamic world.
Tikkala said that dirhams discovered earlier in Finland usually come from around 800 to 1050. This hoard additionally holds several items of personal adornment, among them a silver bracelet, along with “payment silver” fashioned from hack silver — fragments of silver that could be divided into smaller portions for payments based on their weight.
Just the value of the gold itself would put the treasure close to $10,000 in modern money.
Why People Bury Treasure
A recent study of over 15,000 Roman-era hoards (from the eighth century B.C. through the fifth century A.D.) has shown that they were buried for several reasons. These include tax evasion, votive offerings, and safe storage during times of uncertainty. The study’s findings complicate the idea that people hid treasure solely because they were fleeing danger.
But Tikkala stressed that it is difficult to apply those motives directly to the Viking Age. “It’s challenging to determine why specific hoards were buried,” he said.
Not Buried by Vikings
This treasure dates back to the time known as the Viking Age, which spans from the 793 raid on Lindisfarne through to the 1066 victory over a Viking force at Stamford Bridge in England. Yet that period does not establish who actually buried the hoard.
“The term Viking Age does not imply that there were Vikings in Finland.”
Instead of being used to describe a historical event, the term came to be applied by Finnish historians and archaeologists to define a specific period. It did not refer to a region that was culturally or politically connected to Viking Scandinavia; rather, it described the area that is now known as Finland. “We have no sources suggesting that Finland was ‘Viking’ in the same sense as regions of present-day Sweden, Norway, and Denmark,”
A Century of Discovery
The biggest Viking Age treasure ever unearthed in Finland was discovered in 1895, until now. It lay buried at Nousiainen, roughly 130 miles (210 km) to the southwest of Sysmä, holding more than 1,700 silver coins, though its weight came to only about half that of the recently discovered hoard.
This spring, both Norway and Denmark announced finds that rank among the biggest Viking Age treasures ever recovered. In Norway, archaeologists uncovered a collection of over 4,700 coins. Meanwhile, a resident in Denmark stumbled upon a trove of more than 700 silver items, which together weigh more than 40 pounds (18.5 kg), in their own backyard.
The Next Steps
Tikkala explained that the next step in the excavation is to examine the site where the two deposits were found and its surroundings. Following that, experts on Viking Age coins will attempt to identify the coins and produce a thorough report.
“There will definitely be scientific articles published on the hoard as a whole, as well as more detailed studies of the coins themselves,” he said.
Related Finds
Live Science has covered other notable finds in the region:
- A dirty “button” unearthed by a metal detectorist turned out to be a rare 900-year-old coin from Norway’s last Viking king, Magnus Barefoot.
- A gold coin discovered by a metal detectorist in the UK may have been dropped by a Viking invader from the Great Heathen Army.
- A Live Science quiz tests readers on ancient Norse knowledge.
Tikkala has not finished cleaning, sorting and counting the trove, but thousands of items remain to be processed, he said. “There are quite a lot of coins in this hoard,” he said. “I have not had time to go through them.”
Source: livescience.com