Daughter cleaning parents’ basement uncovers dozens of Viking-age artifacts in Norway
We’ve all done a deep clean of the house and found stuff we forgot we had. If you’re lucky, you find some cash tucked away or that thing you were looking for last week. Mundane items.
A woman in Norway found something much more unusual during a recent clean out.
Grete Margot Sørum was cleaning her parents’ house in Valdres. Sorting through items in the basement, she stumbled upon dozens of Viking-age artifacts, the Innlandet County Municipality said in an April 19 news release.
The artifacts had been around the house since the 1980s, the release said. Realizing she’d found something of historical value, Sørum contacted a local museum and handed in the relics.
Archaeologists identified the artifacts as iron ingots from the Viking age or early middle ages, the release said. Photos show the stick-like metal objects. The artifacts are shaped almost like long-handled spatulas and have a hole in one end.
The metal objects all had roughly the same size and weight, leading experts to believe they might have been a form of payment, according to NRK, a local Norwegian outlet.
Sørum told NRK that her father found the metal rods when digging a well near the house. Afterward, he put the objects in a corner where they sat for decades.
Experts think someone might have buried the millennium-old artifacts to hide them for later but never returned, the release said.
The Vikings were Scandinavian warriors who “raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the ninth to the 11th century,” according to Britannica.
The artifacts were given to the Cultural History Museum in Oslo for cataloging and storage.
Valdres is a region about 110 miles northwest of Oslo.
Google Translate was used to translate the news release from Innlandet County Municipality and article from NRK.
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