A younger Norwegian girl was searching on-line for jewellery earlier this week, when she purchased a jumbled assortment of costume jewellery in a web based public sale. Upon receiving her buy, she noticed a roughly-made heavy gold ring, which turned out to be a uncommon artifact from the Viking Age!

Fortunately, Heskestad Gave The Viking Ring to Authorities!

Dated to the Late Iron Age (between 400 and 800 AD), the Viking ring’s band dimension and weight (11 grams or 0.4 ounces) indicated it was worn by a person, which archaeologists speculate was most likely a robust Viking chief. The ring’s identification course of was swift as a result of the lady who purchased it,  Mari Ingelin Heskestad, instantly contacted the archaeological staff in Vestland county after her father mentioned it might be an historical ring.

Heskestad mentioned “it was actually heavy and glossy, seemed very particular” in an interview with native Norwegian newspaper Bergensavisen, BA.

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The ring was within the possession of a Norwegian public sale firm. The one accessible info in the meanwhile is that the Viking ring was in a collection of banana crates from an unnamed property. Proper earlier than Heskestad purchased your complete assortment, it was added to a bigger assortment.

“This has been the case all through the historical past of archaeology. Someone finds one thing – and that’s why it’s so necessary that they get in contact with the precise individuals, so an archaeologist can come and study the place the place one thing was discovered. When you solely discover one piece of bijou it’s actually necessary to alert archaeologists, so we are able to come and see if there’s extra there,” mentioned Unn Pedersen, an affiliate professor of archaeology on the College of Oslo. She is a specialist in non-ferrous metalworking, and an authority on artifacts from the Viking Age.

Mari Ingelin Heskestad of Norway, searching on-line for jewellery, purchased a jumbled assortment of bijou in a web based public sale that contained this Viking ring seemingly worn by a Viking chief. Supply: Vestland County Municipality

Gold: A Marker of Excessive Social Standing in Viking Society

Each women and men wore jewellery as a marker or indicator of social standing in Viking society. Silver was far more frequent, indicating that it was not as treasured as gold. Gold was not often worn, indicating its affiliation with excessive social and financial standing. Gold was uncommon as a result of its provide was very restricted through the Viking Age, which additional bolstered its elite standing, experiences Science Norway.

“Gold was a helpful and costly materials within the Viking Age, used actively to represent energy, to achieve energy over others and to ascertain hierarchies. Finger rings are for instance discovered within the Hoen hoard, a Viking Age treasure with quite a few objects of gold. Subsequently, I discover it seemingly that it was utilized by somebody within the elite, presumably one of many many chiefs of smaller territories,” mentioned Unn Pedersen.

She helped analyze Heskestad’s discover and acknowledged that parallels to this ring have been present in silver however added that “… this can be very uncommon to seek out such a gold ring from the Scandinavian Viking Age. Based mostly on the knowledge offered by the native archaeologists this explicit ring is of a dimension that might match a person, however finger rings of gold from the Viking age are literally additionally present in feminine graves. And I believe that the extraordinarily properly outfitted Oseberg ship burial illustrates that females might be chiefs too.”

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What’s proving to be significantly tough is to establish the place the ring was initially discovered. As Pedersen has famous, the graves of each women and men had been an equally doable location for this ring. It might even have hidden below the floorboards of a home, one other frequent location for safekeeping.

Lastly, it’s not unusual to seek out whole collections of bijou in some obscure location, both hidden or stored there as half of a bigger afterlife communication ritual.

The heavy gold ring is presently within the possession of the College Museum in Bergen, the place it will likely be placed on everlasting show within the fall of 2022.

High picture: The heavy gold ring of Viking origin present in a pile of “nugatory” property jewellery weighed 11 grams or 0.4 ounces, just like a modern-day crown ring. (Vestland County Municipality)

By Sahir Pandey