What started as a backyard digging job for a new terrace turned into Denmark’s biggest Viking silver find.
In Rebild municipality in northern Denmark, a resident found a hoard of roughly 700 artifacts after about half an hour of digging, according to a statement from North Jutland Museums. The collection weighs more than 40 pounds, and experts think it was buried in the tenth century.
“This is an exceptionally important Viking Age silver hoard,” archaeologist Torben Sarauw, head of cultural heritage at North Jutland Museums, told the Art Newspaper’s Hadani Ditmars. “It provides a rare insight into the Viking Age silver economy, where silver functioned not only as coinage but also as weighed bullion used for trade, payments and storing wealth.”
About 320 objects were found inside a pottery vessel, with the rest scattered nearby. The hoard includes bracelets, 47 coins and coin fragments, silver bars, and a small object shaped like Thor’s hammer.
According to the National Museum of Denmark, silver was “the most important precious metal of the Viking Age,” which spanned from roughly 800 to 1050. During that period, silver objects such as bars and jewelry were often valued by weight and used for payment, the statement said.
The newly found hoard includes an unusually large number of silver bars. They are grouped by weight, which indicates the treasure was deliberately organized based on value. In the statement, Sarauw compared the hoard to a Viking-era safe.
Two of the coins are silver pennies minted under King Edward the Elder, who ruled in England from 899 to 924. Other coins are dirhams marked with Arabic inscriptions. Sarauw said in the statement that those coins show the Vikings’ connections to the east.
One silver bar is engraved with runes that might say “hutu,” possibly a name or ownership mark. The hammer-shaped artifact is linked to Thor, the god of thunder in Norse mythology. Vikings were known to create and wear amulets shaped like Thor’s hammer.
The Rebild hoard is larger than Denmark’s second-largest Viking silver collection, the 14.5-pound Terslevskat, which is on display at the National Museum. North Jutland Museums hopes to eventually exhibit the Rebild artifacts at the Fyrkat Viking Museum.
Researchers do not know why the items were buried at that spot. “It was buried during the period when the Danish kingdom was taking shape and Christianity was spreading across Scandinavia,” Sarauw told the Art Newspaper. “As well as illuminating Viking Age trade and wealth, the hoard provides evidence of a society undergoing profound political and religious change.”
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