Posted on 12/21/2004 4:19:03 PM PST by blam
Archaeologists strike gold in secret spot
Eleven small, golden reliefs have been unearthed at an archaeological dig somewhere in eastern Norway. Officials won't say where, because they think more of the 1,400-year-old gold objects will be found at the site.
Professor Heid Gjøstein Resi with one of the small gold reliefs found in eastern Norway.
PHOTO: ARASH A. NEJAD
The most intact object found in October depicts a couple, maybe the mythological figures Frøy and Gerd.
PHOTO: ARASH A. NEJAD
"This is a tremendously unique and exciting discovery, the kind an archaeologist makes only once in a lifetime," professor Heid Gjøstein Resi told newspaper Aftenposten. Resi, who's tied to the Oslo museum housing Viking treasures (the Oldsakssamlingen at the Kulturhistorisk Museum), has been leading the excavation where the gold objects were found.
They were first unearthed in October, before digging was forced to stop for the winter. Resi said they found on the excavation's first day, and the thrill intensified when no less than 10 more were found later.
The archaeologists call the small reliefs gullgubber, which basically translates to "golden old men." That's because the first of their kind found in Scandinavia depicted men with beards, even though those found this fall depict a man and a woman.
They date from 600-700 AD, are only about 1.1 centimeters in size and are believed to have been used as a form of payment or offering at rituals. The last ones found in Norway were unearthed at Borg on Lofoten in the 1980s. They also were found under Mæhre Church in Trøndelag in the 1960s and at Klepp in Rogaland in the 1800s.
The biggest collection, around 2,300, was found on the Danish island of Bornholm. The so-called gulgubber also have been found in Sweden.
Archaeologists will resume digging at the site in the spring, and its location is expected to be made public next year.
GGG Ping.
They would still have been pagans at the time.
In fact, terrorists raiding the coasts of England? Or was that later?
The first Viking raid on the British Isles was in 789.
Remarkable workmanship! It helps put the Viking civilization in context -- blunting our view of the "savages" which we get by being on the recieving end of their raids. Great posts today!
Western Europe at the time was still a rat hole. No self-respecting Scandinavian raider would sully himself with a raid in that impoverished, desolate wasteland.
Vikings were not terrorists. They were just on a cruise that went bad. It's not their fault. They're victims because they didn't get to write the PC history. They were just there to buck up the Brits to stand up to the French.
Thanks, good to hear from you. Merry Christmas to you and the missus.
There had been a regular trade in slaves along the inland traderoutes to the Black Sea for centuries, so these pieces could very well have been produced by a Greek or Levantine goldsmith purchased somewhere on the Danish coast.
The Scandinavians didn't take over these trade routes until the 900s when they became the "Russ".
And to think that it all ended in lutefisk!
Are they up on Ebay yet ?
She's cute. Looks like they are holding hands.
Looks like Freddy Flinstone and Wilma.
I think Oslo teenagers lick these things at raves.
This was getting close to the Islamic Golden Age, ironically what really helped bring Europe into the modern world by translating scientific texts of the Greeks etc.
The Church kept their copies hidden from view.
Europe really was backwards at this time, and it is ironic that it was the Muslim contact that helped them become more advanced, while now it is the Muslims who are backwards.
With the ulama basically suppressing Islamic itjihad and inquiry since basically the 1700's...
Western Europe was to be pretty much a dump for the next 500 years!
Our friends the Scanderhoovians were still pretty much pagan right up to near modern times. The last Viking King was cremated in the ancient ceremonies on the Volga in the mid 1700s for example.
It's not surprising to see the Scanderhoovians in the most recently civilized areas of Sweden, Finland and Norway retreat into paganism which they now call secularism. The return of human sacrifice is probably quite near.
I know, my Norwegian great-grandparents and my Irish grand-parents are at war within me. :)
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