Record hoard from the Viking Age: Coin number 5,000 has now been dug up
The metal detectors are still beeping out in the field in eastern Norway.
Metal detectorists Rune Sætre and Vegard Sørlie, together with landowner Ole Erik Hørstad and coin number 5,000 from the Mørstad Hoard.(Photo: May-Tove Smiseth)
Metal detectorists Rune Sætre and Vegard Sørlie had envisioned a quiet start to the season. Instead, in April this year they found the largest Viking Age coin hoard ever discovered in Norway, which Science Norway has previously reported on.
Neither excavations in the field nor ground-penetrating radar revealed any further finds, so farmer and landowner Ole Erik Hørstad went ahead and sowed his grain.
Now that the grain has been harvested, the search has resumed.
And together with detectorists Sætre and Sørlie, Hørstad dug up coin number 5,000 this past weekend.
Annonse
It was an Otto-Adelheid penny – a type that is quite common in the Mørstad Hoard.
Metal detectorist Vegard Sørlie is back in the field at Mørstad Farm in eastern Norway.(Photo: May-Tove Smiseth)
A little less and a little deeper
When county archaeologist May-Tove Smiseth first arrived at the field back in April, she thought it would be exciting if the find turned out to contain a few hundred coins.
When the count passed 4,000, she became more optimistic.
From the field in eastern Norway, Smiseth can now report that the latest count is around 5,200.
Smiseth, the detectorists, and several archaeologists from Innlandet County will continue their search in the field at least through the end of the week.
“The detectors are still beeping, just a little less often and a little deeper down,” says Smiseth, who is among those operating the excavator during this week’s search.
“We're removing soil so we can get better access to the ones lying deeper down,” she says.
Not coin number 5,000 – but one of the coins found this week. “An English type, in beautiful condition,” says May-Tove Smiseth.(Photo: May-Tove Smiseth)
English coins struck by Norwegian Vikings?
The archaeologists do not know why the coins were buried in this particular spot. But something dramatic must have happened.
It has now been confirmed that we are not talking about almost 5,000, but well over that number.
Back at the museum, the coin experts are hard at work cataloguing the many thousands of coins. The work will take at least a year, Anne Skogsfjord estimated this summer.
Annonse
On some of the English coins she has catalogued, she has found Norwegian-sounding names belonging to the person who struck the coin – such as Beorn, Aslac, and Cetil.
“It makes you wonder: was there a Viking here who found work striking coins?”
Some of the most unusual coins in the hoard are the four Norwegian Harald Hardrada coins. These date the hoard to around 1046–1047, in other words, the end of the Viking Age.
