Norwegian man, told by doctors to get off the couch, buys metal detector & finds 1500 yo treasure

[highplainsdem]

CBS News story, then the longest video about this I could find.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gold-find-of-the-century-norway-metal-detector-erlend-bore/

At first, the Norwegian man thought his metal detector reacted to chocolate money buried in the soil. It turned out to be nine pendants, three rings and 10 gold pearls in what was described as the country's gold find of the century.

The rare find was made this summer by 51-year-old Erlend Bore on the southern island of Rennesoey, near the city of Stavanger. Bore had bought his first metal detector earlier this year to have a hobby after his doctor ordered him to get out instead of sitting on the couch.

"At first I thought it was chocolate coins or Captain Sabertooth coins," said Bore, referring to a fictional Norwegian pirate. "It was totally unreal."

Ole Madsen, director at the Archaeological Museum at the University of Stavanger, said that to find "so much gold at the same time is extremely unusual."

-snip-

More stories about this:

https://gizmodo.com/norway-largest-gold-find-of-the-century-erlend-bore-1850815201

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/07/norway-gold-find-of-century-metal-detector-erlend-bore-medallions

https://sciencenorway.no/archaeology-history/1500-year-old-gold-treasure-discovered-by-metal-detectorist-this-is-the-gold-find-of-the-century-in-norway/2247536

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/norway-man-metal-detector-makes-gold-find-century-rcna104020

From the last one, NBC:

“There was a terrible period in the middle of the 6th century when both plague and climate deterioration came at once,” Håkon Reiersen, associate professor at the museum, told the Norwegian broadcaster NRK. He added that at the time, the region of Rogaland “had a large population, and many died.”

“From that period immediately after, we have almost no finds,” he said.

“So many people died, and some had to put down their most precious things in hopes of either getting better times or to hide their treasures,” he added.

Buried around 500 A.D. when Norway was ruled by rival kings and the Roman Empire had not long collapsed, the museum’s experts believe the intricate craftmanship shown in the gold suggests the jewelry was made in a nearby workshop controlled by political and religious elites that may have held sway over much of southern Norway.

Any of you DUers have metal detectors? Have you used them recently?

Most of us can always use more exercise. I have to admit that walking around with a metal detector had never occurred to me. (And I just checked Amazon and see they're cheaper than any piece of exercise equipment I have here. Hmm...)

Even if you don't stumble across anything museum-worthy, you might still find something of value. And if you don't need the found money, there are always plenty of worthwhile organizations and causes to donate to. Including our Democratic candidates.

[mopinko]

1. i have 1 my kid left behind.

this is tempting me.

[highplainsdem]

10. I hope you will try it!

[Vinca]

2. When we first bought our 1770's house, I bought a metal detector thinking surely I would find

some artifacts from the past on our 5 acres. So far all I've found is nails and a button. Not so much as 1 lousy coin. I'm so jealous of the Norwegian man.

[highplainsdem]

11. With 5 acres, you may still have some places left to search.

[onethatcares]

14. word

make a plan to search a 25 ft x 25 ft area. Remove all the trash you find in the area, pull tabs, bobbypins,, metal stuff. Go back over area with less discrimination, repeat junk removal. You should start to find good targets at that point. Keep it up until that 25 x 25 area no longer has any targets or returns any signals. Using a long blade screwdriver will help avoiding digging large holes, a hand held pinpointer will cut down recovery time.

Change to new area adjacent to first. Hint; Look where the clothes lines were in the old days, pay special attention there.

What kind of detector are you using? This is one hobby that equipment matters and the better detectors are $500.00 on up.

[Vinca]

19. I don't recall the name of it offhand. I bought it over 20 years ago. I was hoping to find where

they threw trash in hopes of finding some old bottles, but no luck so far there, either. It did occur to me I've got one place left to search when I get in the mood. Keep hope alive, although I suspect the old timers who built the place were more of the farmer variety than high roller types.

[onethatcares]

21. high roller/low roller

everybody says, "Where the hell did that go? I had it in my pocket just a minute ago".

1700s gives you one heck of a range for things to be dropped. Buttons, bullets, hat pins, coins (think 2 cent pieces or parts of same)
kids toys and parts thereof,pocket watches, et al.

If you follow the exit from the kitchen door to any kind of depression you might find the trash pile which is mighty fine picking.

Remember, most coins were silver up until 60 years ago.

I used to love trash picking old foundations when I lived in PA. Now those places are mcmansions and worse.

Good luck

[Vinca]

30. Believe it or not, there was a small addition put on the original house sometime very early on.

It was put on a crawl space (the rest is a stone foundation). When we first moved in I actually crawled in there with the metal detector and checked it out. Nada. Someone told me once that lilac bushes grow where trash piles used to be, so that's another place I could check around. It would be fun to find something. Treasure hunting gets in your blood. I was an antique dealer until Covid crashed the business and I decided to retire. I still have "the bug" though. Always looking for that undiscovered Picasso. LOL.

[JHB]

31. In New England, stuff like that would be the most likely metal bits to find, outside of battlefields

or maybe other bits like barrel hoops and other stuff from settler origins.

Anything you'd find from earlier would likely be copper objects from the native peoples' trading networks. Those would likely be few and small, unless your property happens to be on the site of an old village or camping location.

No gold caches, man. Location, location, location.

[mainer]

3. Time to plug the British TV series "The Detectorists"!

About a club of oddballs who use metal detectors to look for ancient treasures. It's wonderful and sweet and stars some very fine actors -- including Diana Ring.

[MagickMuffin]

5. A very good series, funny, sometimes sad, but mostly humorous

It also stars Mackenzie Crook from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and The Office bbc.

[highplainsdem]

7. Diana Rigg, not Ring (had to look it up, have never seen the series). And her real-life daughter,

Rachael Stirling, played her daughter on the show.

[mainer]

28. Argh. Spellcheck! N/t

[highplainsdem]

29. Spellcheckers will get you. :) I just found video of Rigg and her daughter being

interviewed about the show.

[highplainsdem]

9. The show sounds really good! Thanks for mentioning it. I'll have to look for it.

[sky_masterson]

18. I freaking love that show.

Great Characters. It's won awards over there

[highplainsdem]

32. Thanks again for recommending that series! I've watched the first few

episodes already. Charming show, with lots of the dotty eccentric characters Brits are so good at.

Though it also demonstrates how rare the most lucrative and/or historic finds are.

And watching the actors wander slowly across mostly-flat fields shows how little exercise it provides - unless you need to hike a long way to reach a site you want to search - at least for people who get any exercise otherwise. But for someone like that Norwegian, who apparently was such a couch potato it worried his doctors, it's still an interesting hobby that can be rewarding in various ways.

[Mosby]

4. Does he get to keep the stuff?

Or is it property of Norway now?

[highplainsdem]

8. Property of Norway, but both the finder and the landowner will receive a reward, according to

the CBS article.

[Mosby]

26. Thanks. nt

[Ocelot II]

6. I wonder what I'd find in my back yard?

A friend has found some very old bits of Native American Blackduck-type pottery at his lake place in northern MN, but that's not the sort of thing you'd find with a metal detector.

My ancestors were from the Stavanger area; I don't suppose I could convince anybody that the gold belonged to them, though...

[highplainsdem]

12. It's probably worth checking.

How cool that your friend found that old pottery.

I found a beautiful obsidian arrowhead on my grandfather's farm in NE Kansas. Also found a perfect little fossilized clam shell with scalloped edges (that entire area is ancient seabed, lots of fossils in limestone). Wanted to be both an archaeologist and a paleontologist when I grew up, along with dozens of other professions. But I never grew up.

[mopinko]

15. not even the metals in the glaze?

black pottery has a lot of metals in it. wouldnt b surprised if it pinged.

[Ocelot II]

20. This pottery is about a thousand years old, and although it was fired

I don't think it was ever glazed. Its color, various shades of brown and reddish, came from the minerals in the clay. http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/1298

[onethatcares]

13. I have separate water and land detectors

been searching since 2009. Found enough stuff to pay both machines off 3 or 4 times.

Most expensive find: an 18K 24 inch figaro cut gold chain in ankle deep water along one of the beaches $1200.00 scrap value

I've found many rings, from junk aluminum to 22k gold. Many coins from late 1800s to date.

It's a great hobby but if you get involved don't expect to get rich or hit it big first times out. Ya dig a lot of pull tabs, nails, aluminum foil, beer cans buried on the beach (who the f does that?) Remember to get permission and to fill your holes.

Used to be you could hunt the parks and playgrounds but some one always screws it up for the rest of us and many of those places are not available anymore.

If you're gonna hunt the water, picture a 1 inch ring being looked for with a 10 inch ring in a 6000 sq mile arena.

[highplainsdem]

24. Fascinating! Sound like some great finds!

[sky_masterson]

16. I have an Equinox 800 but havent been out in a year

Been too busy and hot.
I do love metal detecting. Never found anything as cool as this guy though

[highplainsdem]

25. That's a really nice metal detector.

https://www.minelab.com/metal-detectors/equinox-800

[blueknight73]

17. I have one

And have been detecting off and on for 35 years! My best find was a Rolex watch in the sand at Hilton head and over the years have found probably over 100 rings and and jewelry pieces. My main thing I hunt for is civil war artifacts

[highplainsdem]

33. Nice finds!

[onethatcares]

22. that's the kewl thing

you never know what lies below the surface of the planet. Good luck.

[highplainsdem]

34. Yes. It can add to knowledge of history. As can interesting

finds of old stuff lying on the surface. As I mentioned in reply 12, I found a beautiful obsidian arrowhead on my grandfather's farm in NE Kansas when I was a kid. Obsidian arrowheads found a long way from the source of the obsidian are evidence of the trading that went on then.

[treestar]

23. Norwegian man

doing better by far than "Florida man."

[highplainsdem]

35. LOL! Well, that's a very low bar...

[VGNonly]

27. I lived very close to War of 1812

battle, Ft. Meigs. Used my detector in my yard to find dozens of lead balls, a bayonet, nails and other scrap. Gave it all to The Ohio Historical Society.

[highplainsdem]

36. Good for you! And what a great location for using a metal detector!