The various gold objects date back to around 400 to 550 C.E. and likely belonged to someone in the social elite.
Erlend Bore posing with the cache of gold he discovered while walking with his metal detector.
On the advice of his doctor, 51-year-old Erlend Bore from Rennesøy, Norway, took up metal detecting to get more exercise. Little did he know, his new hobby would lead him to an extraordinary find. On one of his walks, Bore’s metal detector signaled something in the soil. Initially thinking it might be chocolate money, he stumbled upon a cache of nine gold pendants, three gold rings, and 10 gold pearls—pieces of an ornate necklace from about 1,500 years ago. Experts are now calling this the “gold find of the century.”
“At first, I thought it was chocolate coins or Captain Sabertooth coins,” Bore told The Guardian, referencing a well-known Norwegian pirate character. “It was totally unreal.”
For Bore, who had dreamed of becoming an archaeologist as a child, this discovery was nothing short of a dream come true. Interestingly, he had only started using his metal detector in August after his doctor recommended physical activity. On one of his exploratory walks, just as he was about to head home, his metal detector began beeping on a hillside.
Bore informed local archaeologists, who soon excavated the gold treasure.
Archaeologists from the Stavanger Museum digging up the cache of gold objects.
Ole Madsen, head of the University of Stavanger’s Museum of Archaeology, noted that such a significant gold discovery is extremely rare. “It’s the gold find of the century in Norway. To find that much gold all at once is extremely unusual,” he said.
According to Norwegian law, any object from before 1537, and coins older than 1650, is considered state property. Thus, Bore couldn’t keep his find but both he and the landowner will be rewarded, although the sum is yet to be determined.
Experts at the Stavanger Museum examined the gold items. Associate professor Håkon Reiersen identified the gold pendants as bracteates—flat, thin, one-sided gold medals. They date back to between 400 and 550 C.E., a period known as the “migration period” in Norway due to widespread migrations across Europe. Reiersen said the pendants and pearls likely formed a “very showy necklace” crafted by skilled artisans for the elite.
The recovered medallions featuring a horse from Norse mythology.
“Given the location of the discovery and what we know from other similar finds, this is probably a matter of either hidden valuables or an offering to the gods during dramatic times,” Reiersen added. “In Norway, no similar discovery has been made since the 19th century, and it’s also a very unusual find in a Scandinavian context.”
Professor Sigmund Oehrl, who also works at the Stavanger Museum, specializes in these types of pendants. He explained that about 1,000 golden bracteates have been found in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Oehrl noted an interesting feature on the Rennesøy pendants: a depiction of a horse from Norse mythology. The horse’s tongue is sticking out, and its slumped posture and twisted legs indicate injury. Typically, such symbols represent Odin, the god of war, healing a horse.
“The horse symbol represented illness and distress, but also hope for healing and new life,” Oehrl elaborated.
The Archaeological Museum in Stavanger plans to display the find for the public to enjoy.
