Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, skeptic, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
Swedish island-province Öland's second-largest silver hoard ever was found recently. Dating from the 11th century and consisting mainly of about 1000 German and English coins, it also has some Islamic ones, one from Sigtuna and even one from India, a very rare occurrence. Some hack silver as well, and a piece of gold rod unless I'm mistaken.
The droning noise at the start and end of the above newsreel is a Bronze Age trumpet that had been lying in a bog for almost 2000 years at the time when the hoard was buried and would spend almost another 1000 years there before it was unearthed. Nice try, TV guys.
Via AHIMKAR.
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
Does it ever strike anyone that it is a little weird the way our civilization values old broken up stuff. In any normal society that silver would likely already be melted down into something new, if such a society had metal smelting technology. I suppose we have to blame archaeology and its predecessor antiquarianism for this oddity.
Posted by: tenine | June 25, 2009 11:52 AM
Hoards of silver. Good stuff.
Viking booty ... arrr. Did vikings say 'arrr'? What is the Swedish equivalent of 'arrr'?
Posted by: Art | June 25, 2009 12:23 PM
Tenine, yeah, just like anyone in a normal society would eat the apple and not wonder why it fucking fell.
Art, no, Vikings don't go "arrr", they go "wöööh! wöööh!".
Posted by: Martin R | June 25, 2009 1:12 PM
"a Bronze Age trumpet that had been lying in a bog for almost 2000 years"
And probably thrown into the bog by the trumpeter's neighbor.
Posted by: Moopheus | June 25, 2009 5:56 PM
Wöööh!
Outstanding.
And I got to look up how to type an umlaut, my German teacher would be so proud.
Posted by: Art | June 25, 2009 10:20 PM