15 Mar 2016 Kilo of gold Viking bracelets

Six years ago, two men and a woman discovered a magnificent Viking treasure with the help of metal detectors. Nearly a kilo of gold bracelets were found in Denmark. The value? Experts say it's priceless.

The finders are an amateur group of prospectors. They call themselves Team Rainbow Power. They dug six gold and one silver bracelet from the ground, dating back to around 900. The jewelry dates back to the Viking period.

We also wrote about the treasure here: Viking gold bracelets

The prospectors found the bracelets near the village of Vejen. "We were excited, as if we had discovered the Holy Grail. And that was as soon as we found the first jewel. As we pulled out more and more, we couldn't believe our eyes," said Marie Aagaard Larsen, who found the treasure with her two friends.

The Rainbow Power team emailed a photo of the artefact to the Sønderskov Museum in nearby Brørup. Curator and archaeologist Lars Grundvad was amazed when he saw what they had found. Together with colleagues, he went to the site.

Commenting on the treasure, Danish National Museum spokesman Peter Pentz said the bracelets may have been given by the Viking leader as a reward to his loyal followers. "This is a revolutionary thing. Even the discovery of one bracelet would have been impeccable, seven is an incredible thing," Pentz commented on the find.

The value of the treasure is incalculable, according to experts. The metal from which the bracelets were made alone is worth around a million crowns. The bracelets' hoard probably included a gold chain, which was found in an identical field back in 2011.

It is not unusual for items from the same hoard to be found at different times, even centuries apart. The buried treasures may have been scattered over a wide area due to agricultural activities, and since metal detectors only started to be used in Denmark in the 1980s. in the 1920s, archaeologists had not found all the artefacts before then.

The total weight of the gold bracelets is almost one kilogram. The previous record holder for the largest amount of gold from a Viking hoard was a depot found at Vester Vedsted in southwestern Jutland in 1859. It contained two gold necklaces, five gold bracelets, a fragment of a gold chain, two filigree pendants and two gold beads weighing a total of 750 grams.

Sources: www.thehistoryblog.com, www.novinky.cz, www.thelocal.dk