[Northkeep] FW: Viking News

[Niewoehner, Hugh]

Of interest?

> -----Original Message-----
> Dear Viking friends,
> I have many times said that Gotland was a real centre in the 
> Viking world, in spite of its small size. This can clearly be 
> seen in the vast number of silver hoards found on the island. 
> So far, more then 700 silver hoards have been found on the 
> island, and every year there is at least one new hoard. That 
> is about 2/3 of all hoards from the whole of Sweden. There 
> are some 160 000 coins in all, and thousands of other 
> objects. The worlds biggest silver hoard ever found came to 
> light some years ago in the northern part of the island, with 
> a weight of some 67 kilos and consisting of some 14 200 
> coins, mainly Arabic coins!
> 
> Many of the hoards were found almost a hundred years ago in 
> connection to the expansion of arable land. At that time, 
> there were not much of investigations into the sites, just 
> picking up all the artifacts.
> 
> Last autumn, I had the mission from the County Administration 
> of Gotland, to follow up some of these places, by using a 
> metal detector. In all of the sites penetrated (at this time 
> 5 places), we found pieces of the hoards still in the ground, 
> mainly in the form of coins. In all, we discovered more then 
> 100 coins.
> 
> I have been thinking of making a CD-R about these hoards, 
> with some very detailed photos of coins as well as of other 
> objects. Just to give you an idea of what we find, I have put 
> together a short pdf file about one of the sites. Please have 
> a look at http://www.arkeodok.com/index1.html and click the 
> link in the text talking about silver hoards.
> 
> Have a nice Viking weekend
> 
> Dan Carlsson
> Associate Professor
> University of Gotland.  
> Visby, Sweden