A homeowner stumbled upon the largest hoard of Viking Age silver ever found in Denmark while doing gardening work to remove “stubborn grass” in his backyard.
The treasure, weighing about 18.5kg, was discovered in the northern region of Rebild. It’s almost three times bigger than the largest Viking Age silver hoard unearthed in the country previously.
Archaeologists who inspected the hoard said the treasure was placed in a clay vessel and buried sometime in the 10th century.
It consisted of almost 700 objects, including silver bars, bracelets, 50 coins, and a small Thor’s hammer artefact that likely served as a lucky charm.
“It should’ve just been a few hours of hard gardening work removing stubborn grass, stones and gravel for a new tiled terrace, but it turned out to be the biggest surprise of my life,” said the homeowner, who asked to remain anonymous.
“After half an hour of digging, my grip hit something that made a strange sound. At first I thought it was old iron, or fence wire and some potsherds, but when I started digging with my hands, I was able to fish one metal object after another out of the ground.”
Nearly 320 of the more than 700 objects were found whole in their original clay vessel, while the rest were scattered as fragments in the soil around it.
“This is a find of great importance for our understanding of the Viking Age in Denmark,” archaeologist Torben Sarauw from the Museums of North Jutland said. “Not just because of its size but also because the treasure clearly shows how silver functioned as wealth and a means of payment in the Viking Age. It’s like finding a safe from the Viking Age.”
One of the silver bars is engraved with runes that can be read as “hutu”. Researchers suspect it may be a name, an ownership symbol, or some other significant form of marking.
The hoard is also peculiar as it is dominated by bars, jewellery and silver clips, with coins only making up a very small part of the total weight, unlike previously discovered Viking treasure in Denmark.
“When we analyse the weight of the silver objects, the treasure reveals information about the economic practices of the Viking Age,” Dr Sarauw said.
“The treasure does not only consist of beautiful objects. Most of them are part of a structured value system by weight.”
During the Viking Age, scrap silver, bars and jewellery were used as means of payment, with the weight of the silver being the decisive measure. People often cut silver into smaller pieces or melted it down.
Archaeologists could see signs of this practice in the Rebild hoard as well where a large number of silver bars, bracelets, and scraps were found grouped around specific weight groups.
The hoard contained Arab dirhams as well as Anglo-Saxon coins, pointing to Denmark’s connection with large parts of Europe and areas far to the east during the Viking Age.
Two of the Anglo-Saxon silver pennies were minted under King Edward the Elder, who reigned from 899 to 924, providing an important dating point for the hoard.
“That’s what is fascinating about the find,” Dr Sarauw noted. “The silver was hidden in Rebild, but it points to a much larger world.”
“The new silver treasure shows that the Rebild area wasn’t a peripheral region,” the archaeologist said, “but part of the large economic and cultural connections that linked Scandinavia with the areas around the Baltic Sea and the Islamic world to the east, as well as with the North Sea area, England and western Europe to the west.”