Posted on 07/14/2015 12:36:43 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Boeslunde is in Zealand, the large island that sits between mainland Denmark and the tip of Sweden. It’s a hotbed for archaeology in Denmark since it has served as a connective hub for thousands of years—netting recent finds as diverse as 1,000-year-old viking jewelry to actual fortresses in the past year. Boeslunde, where the spirals were discovered, is “a special sacred place in the Bronze Age where prehistoric people performed their rituals and offered gold to the higher powers,” according to the Danish National Museum’s curator, Flemming Kaul. The constant discovery of new gold around the area has spurred more thorough digs—including one by the National Museum and the local Museum Vestsjælland, which uncovered this new finding.
So, what exactly did they find? Thousands of tightly-wound gold wires, each about one inch long, that together made up more than half a pound of solid gold, which seems to have been buried in a wooden box lined with fur which has long since disintegrated. Fascinatingly, no one’s quite sure how these tiny wires were actually used—the museum calls it “a little mystery” in its press release about the find, which dates from around 900 BC.
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
Not decorations that much is true
Indeed
Nah. Gold is too soft
Or that but I suspect intentionally wound
That’s what I’m thinking. Someone was working gold, focused more on the end product than stray shavings, and somehow the location got abandoned & covered before anyone thought to clean up the (possibly relatively trivial) leftovers.
How do you know which such certainty that they weren't used as decorations of some sort?
It could possibly be they way they were made and stored. Beating the gold around a stick or something would get it that shape then put into a fur lined box for safe keeping/travel.
Money. Prices denominated in number of gold coils.
Yup, lathe fall.
You spiral wind the gold wire to a specific diameter as you see here, and then you can cut off individual loops to make a chain. What you see here is just an intermediate stage in the production of jewelry.
Looks like leavings from a lathe. But who would leave gold behind?
They didn't. They stashed them in a box for later use, but never got a round tuit.
Finally someone sees the obvious.
Anyone who has worked on metal jewelry would know immediately what those spirals are.
To make chains, ornamental or practical, in that size, the metal, gold, silver, or bronze is progressively drawn thru a die of a harder metal. The result is wire which can be left round or beaten flatter.
The spirals are the first evidence of mass profuction.
The wire is wrapped around a metal mandrel, basically a rod, in tight coils. And when usung precious metals the coils are, of course, short.
The chains of round links I made were cut from the coil with a very fine jeweler’s saw blade but one could just as well used a small chisel. Cutting along the longitudinal axis of the mandrel has them dropping off rapidly. The amount of soft gold coils could be reduced to links in less than two hours. Mass production.
The cut links because of the spiral wrapping, have ends that don’t meet but are offset the width of the wire used. A simple twist to have them meet after linking with another cutoff link and you have the v beginning of a chain.
The joined link ends can the be soldered together to appear monolithic.
Essential components of a flux capacitor!
I have it on good authority that these were early versions of coronary artery stents developed to treat blockages in the hearts of Vikings...
I knew it...THE VIKINGS INVENTED THE SLINKY.
All they needed was to get the Bagdad Battery...
IUD birth control, precursor of Planned Parenthood?
Machining chips?
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