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Archaeologists Baffled By 2,000 Tiny Gold Spirals Discovered In Denmark
gizmodo ^ | July 13, 2015

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 ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: 000; 2; 2000; denmark; found; godsgravesglyphs; gold; goldspirals; viking; vikinggold; vikings
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To: BenLurkin

You get those if you are engraving gold with a chisel. . . gold is soft enough that you can get a long spiral like that as you push the chisel forward. The spiral forms naturally. What I am surprised about is that the goldsmith did not collect them and resmelt the gold for re-use. Gold, then and now, was valuable and would have been reused. He must have been interrupted in his work and never gotten back to it. . . in other words he was killed, and the killers did not bother to clean up the gold in their pillaging.


41 posted on 07/14/2015 8:21:45 PM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: Uncle Miltie
But who would leave gold behind?

The goldsmith would if his shop were attacked by Vikings and he got killed, the shop pillaged by those interested only in the large finished or partially finished pieces. Such barbarians would not take the time to clean the floor for sweepings. . . and then the workshop gets abandoned. . .

42 posted on 07/14/2015 8:31:59 PM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: Uncle Miltie

PS: Using Vikings in the generic raider sense. . . not putting the anachronistically out of their milieu.


43 posted on 07/14/2015 8:34:34 PM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: Swordmaker

Whatever they were chiseling must have been quite large for an object made of gold.

I wonder what it was.


44 posted on 07/14/2015 8:34:50 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: BenLurkin
I wonder what it was.

Idol of Baal or Beelzebub?

45 posted on 07/14/2015 8:36:37 PM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: ETL

Precisely because the people postulating it do not think of anything but dumb untechnological peoples who are not as modern as ‘us’. Those who used gold for decorations ( see any civilization from Egypt through the Celts etc) did so with inlays, chunks, leafing, etc.

These tightly wound spirals show purpose and precision....plus they were not on ANYTHING decorative. Instead they were in a box with an animal pelt


46 posted on 07/14/2015 8:39:31 PM PDT by Nifster
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To: Covenantor; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; decimon; 1010RD; 21twelve; 24Karet; ...
Thanks Covenantor.

47 posted on 07/15/2015 4:31:42 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (What do we want? REGIME CHANGE! When do we want it? NOW)
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To: BenLurkin

Someone paying the Danegeld.


48 posted on 07/15/2015 5:44:01 PM PDT by Redcitizen
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To: BenLurkin

simple...... the “spirals” are lathe cut offs

as an article is turned, a continuous strip is cut off and is wound into a spiral

machine shop floors exhibit lots of them


49 posted on 07/15/2015 5:46:39 PM PDT by bert ((K.E.; N.P.; GOPc.;+12, 73, ..... No peace? then no peace!)
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To: GraceG

Yeah, I was thinking they used them to build their computers.


50 posted on 07/16/2015 5:17:01 AM PDT by Bigg Red (Let's put the ship of state on Cruz Control with Ted Cruz.)
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To: ctdonath2

But the article says that they had been inside a fur-lined wooden box, so not just left behind.


51 posted on 07/16/2015 5:19:39 AM PDT by Bigg Red (Let's put the ship of state on Cruz Control with Ted Cruz.)
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To: Covenantor

Your explanation sounds just right. Thank you.

I think they need you at this dig.


52 posted on 07/16/2015 5:22:04 AM PDT by Bigg Red (Let's put the ship of state on Cruz Control with Ted Cruz.)
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To: Bigg Red

At the time, a long spiral of gold would have been a wondrous thing. A big pile of spiral gold shavings would likely not have been made for their own sake, but quite possibly kept as novel finery anyway.


53 posted on 07/16/2015 7:11:18 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (The world map will be quite different come 20 January 2017.)
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To: Kirkwood

“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.”

That’s crazy talk!

What we see is obviously someone attempting to hide the gold from a robbery of the Tribal Mint as shavings on the floor of a bronze workshop.

I mean, come on. Hasn’t anyone ever heard of Occam’s Razor?


54 posted on 07/16/2015 1:05:14 PM PDT by Grimmy (equivocation is but the first step along the road to capitulation)
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To: Swordmaker

Possible, but if he was killed, why wouldn’t willing to murder another man be willing to take the gold shavings, assuming that was all they could find?


55 posted on 07/17/2015 9:57:20 AM PDT by Altariel ("Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!")
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To: Altariel
Possible, but if he was killed, why wouldn’t willing to murder another man be willing to take the gold shavings, assuming that was all they could find?

Because when you're pillaging, you don't look in wooden boxes. You kill, grab the obvious gold goodies and run to the next place. . . Besides you might be weighed down with such large gold items that the chicken feed stuff is not worth a second thought. Especially if you might get killed by the Johnny come latelys as you are rummaging for the small stuff.

56 posted on 07/17/2015 3:15:38 PM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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