Metal detectorist unearths ‘chocolate wrapper’ — and finds rare gold artifact. See it
Sweeping his metal detector along the ground at a farm in Norway, a man heard a faint beeping. The day was almost over and he debated whether or not to stop.
“In many cases, I would have just moved on,” Mikkel Killingmoe Christensen said, according to a translation from ScienceNorway.
This time, he stopped. Digging into the soil, Christensen unearthed a small crinkled piece of metal. At first, he thought it was a gold chocolate wrapper.
“It was about the size of my pinky fingernail, and I could hardly feel its weight in my hand,” Christensen said.
But the tiny item was actually a rare gold artifact, known as a gold foil, from 1,200 years ago, the Cultural Heritage Department of Østfold County Municipality said in a June 7 Facebook post.
A photo shows the crumbled gold artifact. Its central design is difficult to see but appears to be two figures facing each other.
“Imagine being the first person to hold something like this in over 1,000 years,” Christensen said, per ScienceNorway.
Gold foils are thin pieces of gold stamped with designs and date from between 570 and 800, officials said. The designs usually include people or animals and are typically interpreted as depicting a mythical wedding between a Norse god and a giant.
Gold foils have been found in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, the county said. Archaeologists don’t know the purpose of these tiny artifacts but generally link them to ritual ceremonies.
“This is not a common find,” Ingunn Marit Røstad, an archaeologist with the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, told ScienceNorway. “This is the first find (of its kind) from Østfold. It’s certainly very fun and exciting.”
Christensen found the 1,200-year-old gold foil at a farm in Østfold where he and his father, Terje Christensen, have spent several years conducting metal detector searches.
Officials did not specify what will happen with the gold artifact but it will likely be taken to a laboratory for further analysis.
Østfold is a coastal county in southeastern Norway, a roughly 70-mile drive south from Oslo and along the border with Sweden.
Google Translate was used to translate the Facebook post from the Cultural Heritage Department of Østfold County Municipality.
This story was originally published June 20, 2024 at 1:33 PM with the headline "Metal detectorist unearths ‘chocolate wrapper’ — and finds rare gold artifact. See it."
