Archaeologists Baffled By 2,000 Tiny Gold Spirals Discovered In Denmark

gizmodo ^ | July 13, 2015

[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.

[BenLurkin]

[BenLurkin]

FULL HEADLINE: Archaeologists Baffled by 2,000 Tiny Gold Spirals Found in Denmark

[GraceG]

Almost looks like some sort of electrical component...

[tophat9000]

Gold Dreadlocks hair extensions

[BenLurkin]

Yup.

[gundog]

Or antenna.

[Bidimus1]

or an attempt at a spring.

[Teflonic]

Easy way to make small change by clipping off a curl.

[JoeProBono]

Scrap gold Shavings

[Yo-Yo]

[gundog]

A gold spring? Mushy.

[BenLurkin]

hmmmmm

[bkepley]

LOL - so it’s not high tech electronic wiring? Just damn.

[bunkerhill7]

Vikings invented the first mass-produced IUD.

[Hot Tabasco]

They're Boeslunde Finger Traps, the original ancestor of the famously cruel and torturous Chinese Finger Traps.........

[Army Air Corps]

They look like shavings.

[Uncle Miltie]

Looks like leavings from a lathe.

But who would leave gold behind?

[lucky american]

Metal shavings? My neighbor is a machinist and his floor under his bench looks just like that.

[tacticalogic]

First “ring avulsions” and now this. It’s been a bad day for fingers on FR.

[ETL]

“the find, which dates from around 900 BC.”

Pre-dates the Roman empire by about 100 years.