VIKING AGE SILVER HOARD FOUND IN DENMARK

When a resident of northern Denmark started clearing their backyard, the plan was to install a new terrace. They expected a few hours of hard work. But after half an hour of digging, they came across something metallic: a trove of jewelry and coins.

Located in the municipality of Rebild, the backyard revealed the largest hoard of Viking silver ever discovered in Denmark. According to a statement from North Jutland Museums, the treasure includes roughly 700 artifacts and weighs more than 40 pounds. Experts think these items were 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, tells 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, while the others were scattered nearby. The trove includes bracelets, 47 coins and coin fragments, silver bars, and a small object in the shape of Thor's hammer.

Two of the coins in the hoard are silver pennies minted under King Edward the Elder, who ruled in England between 899 and 924. Other coins, known as dirhams, are marked with Arabic inscriptions. As Sarauw explains in the statement, they shed light on the Vikings' connections to the east.

One of the silver bars is engraved with runes that might say "hutu," perhaps a name or mark of ownership. The hammer, meanwhile, is linked to Thor, the god of thunder in Norse mythology. The Vikings were known to create and wear amulets shaped like Thor's hammer.

To read the complete article, see:
Routine Yard Work Reveals a Trove of Viking Silver—the Largest Treasure of Its Kind Ever Discovered in Denmark (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/routine-yard-work-reveals-a-trove-of-viking-silver-the-largest-treasure-of-its-kind-ever-discovered-in-denmark-180989456/)

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