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History's Hinge - 'Ain Jalut

[Bart]

While the basic reports of are posted elsewhere at HH, this post expands upon other aspects of Gotland.

- Bart

Viking Treasure Unearthed in Sweden

   ?In what seems to have been a euphoric week for archaeologists, scientists unearthed both a Viking burial mound in Orkdal, Norway and a Viking treasure on the island of Gotland off the south-east coast of Sweden, last week. The burial mound in Norway, discovered on Tuesday last week, belonged to a wealthy farmer and contained amongst other things a Viking sword, body armour and the tip of a spear according to the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, (only in Norwegian).



   Preben R?nne, an archaeologist from the Museum of Science in Trondheim, Norway, believes the man buried in the mound was of a higher standing, possibly a local chieftain, adding that if a man could afford to slaughter his horse when he is buried he had to have sufficient means. The scientists claim that since the sea level was 5-7 meters above current day sea level, it is highly likely that this burial mound belonged to a settlement close to the sea.

   Meanwhile on the island of Gotland off the Swedish east coast, scientists have uncovered a Viking treasure (article only in Norwegian) ranked as the 25th largest treasure ever to be uncovered on the island. The treasure, originally discovered by two amateur archaeologist brothers, soon revealed as many as 1,100 silver coins of foreign origin in addition to a substantial amount of bracelets.

   During the 9th century, the Vikings expanded their trading journey's from the Russian territories all the way down to Islamic empires in the Middle-east. The Vikings brought back almost exclusively Arabic silver coins, so-called dirhams, and used them in their trading along the Russian rivers and out towards the Baltic Sea Coast. For each decade that passed, the number of coins in the hoards increased and today the Gotlandic yields accounts for almost half of all the 9th century dirhams found in Sweden. Of the total number of 689,000* Arabic, Volga-Bulgarian and Byzantine coins unearthed in Sweden, 51,300 * come from Gotland.?

* These number don't match by reason of wrong decimal point placement or typo in original article. ? - Bart

http://breathinghistory.blogspot.com/2006/12/viking-treasure-unearthed-in-sweden.html

[Bart]

'Amateur Archeologist' Makes Rare Find

11th April 2007 - Link?ping, Sweden

   An amateur archeologist has made an unusual sixth century find at the burial mounds in S?ttuna on the outskirts of Link?ping.

   On the first day of excavations at the site in the south east of Sweden, Niklas Krantz discovered a patrix, a sort of die used to emboss pieces of gold.

   "Only six or seven of these patrices - patterns for the manufacture of golden figures depicting human images - have been found.

   "They come from very high status environments in southern Scandinavia," said excavation manager Martin Rundkvist told Sveriges Radio.

   This particular stamp, which is approximately two centimetres long and one centimetre wide, portrays a woman who resembles a troll.

   When Niklas Krantz first came upon the object with his metal detector, he thought it might have belonged to a clasp for a belt.

   "After a while I realized that it was a major find. I didn't know at first, so it feels good," he told Sveriges Radio.

http://www.thelocal.se/6959/20070411/

[Sovereign]

"Gamla kungsh?gen" vid S?ttuna. Enligt s?gnen sitter kung Sverkers farfarsfar Kettil okristen i den.

December 22, 2006
Radiocarbon for Christmas

Back in September I told you about a little dig that I did with my friends and colleagues Howard, Libby and Peter at Stora Tollstad, Sj?gestad parish, ?sterg?tland. We dug a small peripheral trial trench into a great barrow (Ra? 16) and found a thick charcoal layer underneath it.



Yesterday Tomasz Goslar of the Poznan Radiocarbon Lab sent me the results of analyses of charcoal from the barrow. Ulf Strucke had kindly identified two pieces for me with a low innate age: one of Norway Spruce (Picea abies, Sw. gran) and one of Goat Willow (Salix caprea, Sw. s?lg). The willow material, being a thin twig, should date the cremation pyre at the site (although we found no bones at its periphery). And the analyses came out beautifully!

Spruce. Poz-18592. 1265?30 BP. 685-775 cal AD (1 s).
Willow. Poz-18593. 1210?30 BP. 775-875 cal AD (1 s).



The Sj?gestad barrow was clearly erected in the late 8th or the 9th century AD, that is, the Late Vendel or Early Viking Period. This fits well with the dates of similar barrows in the Lake M?laren area and rules out a Bronze Age date, the other big barrow period in Swedish prehistory. And behind every great barrow lurks a powerful group of mourners...

[Solomon]

Female costume jewellery
Found on the island of Gotland, Sweden

This is a gilded copper-alloy disc-on-bow brooch, decorated with cloisonn? garnets, discs of white paste, beaded wire and punched, geometric patterns. The foot-plate is flanked by two Style II bird heads. Some garnets are lost and finely patterned gold foils can be seen in one or two of the empty cloisonn? cells. The gold foils would have reflected the light through the garnets.

A jewelled disc riveted to the top of the bow distinguishes this elaborate type of brooch and is a development of earlier bow brooches. The new style shows that Scandinavian craftsmen adopted the cloisonn? technique, which was introduced through contacts with the Continent. Dies for impressing the patterned gold foils have recently been found in Denmark and Friesland, indicating the probable route along which the style spread.

Contemporary representations of women found on such items as repouss? gold foil plaques, show 'disc-on-bow' brooches worn horizontally at the neck to fasten a cloak. They probably indicated the high social status of their owners. Exceptionally large versions made later, in the sixth to eighth centuries, in Gotland and central Sweden may have been produced as cult objects.

Length: 8.5 cm

Purchased with the assistance of the National Art Collections Fund

H. Tait (ed.), Seven thousand years of jewellery (London, The British Museum Press, 1986), p. 103, ill. 232

[Solomon]

Northern Germanic, late 5th/early 6th century CE
Found on the island of Gotland, Sweden
Female costume jewellery

This gilded silver radiate-headed brooch is decorated with chip-carved, Style I animals, human heads and scrolls, and inlaid with black niello. The knobs at all the corners are in the form of animal heads. The wavy outline of the head-plate may be derived from friezes of bird heads on earlier forms. The design was possibly introduced by Ostrogothic craftsmen from central Europe in the late fifth century, or it may be imitating their work. Either way, the decoration may represent myths common to both areas as a sign of shared ancestry, which appears to be reflected in the name of Gotland itself.

This type of brooch comes mainly from the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. Long before the Viking culture became dominant on the island from the end of the eighth century, the people of Gotland may have had links with the Ostrogoths. This connection is tenuous but appears to be supported by the carving on this brooch, which was probably worn to fasten a cloak or shawl, as suggested by the position of brooches found on bodies in graves. Such evidence gives us a little information about dress fashions of the times.

Length: 12.2 cm

Purchased with the assistance of the National Art Collections Fund

T. Sj?vold, Norske Oldfunn (Oslo, 1993), p. 53, plate 31, S40

[Solomon]

Amuletic pendant
Northern Germanic, 6th century AD
Found on the island of Gotland, Sweden

In southern Scandinavia bracteates occur mostly as single finds or in hoards. However, they have also been found in graves as items of costume jewellery. Bracteates were probably made as amulets, as the runic inscriptions on some wish good luck. The designs on bracteates may illustrate scenes from myths. However, these scenes are not identified in the inscriptions and precisely what is shown is unclear.

The use of gold shows that bracteates had a very special significance. They may have been struck for offering at religious festivals. Animals shown on them could have been sacrificed to appease the gods and secure prosperity.

This gold bracteate pendant has a suspension loop decorated with filigree wire. The pendant is decorated with a punched border round a central disc. The decoration is in repouss? using a die with a bird, possibly a raven, and a human head above the figure of a horse. The horse is derived from Roman medallions showing the emperor and a chariot.

The human head, which has an elaborate hairstyle, is possibly intended to represent the supreme god, known as Odin in Viking times, though this has been disputed. The style imitates the heads of emperors on Roman medallions and coins. Until the middle of the sixth century, these coins entered Scandinavia as loot or payment to local leaders for their friendship and the provision of mercenary troops. Roman coins and medallions were a major source of the gold used by Scandinavian jewellers.

Diameter: 3.4 cm

Purchased with the assistance of the National Art Collections Fund

H. Tait (ed.), Seven thousand years of jewellery (London, The British Museum Press, 1986), p. 104, ill. 236

[Bart]

Rain Uncovers Viking Treasure Trove In Sweden

Published: 14th September 2007 08:30 CET, Online: http://www.thelocal.se/8484/

   A bout of torrential rain left a surprising legacy in the garden of one Swede: a Viking treasure trove. Two coins were uncovered by the rain on the lawn of farmer Tage Pettersson, on the island of Gotland, in early August. He called in Gotland's archaeologists, who last week found a further 52 coins on the site.

   Most of the coins are German, English and Arabic currency from the late 900s and early 1000s. But archaeologists are most excited about the presence of six very rare Swedish coins, from the reign of Olof Sk�tkonug, king of Sweden from 994-1022.

   One of the Swedish coins has never been found in Sweden before, although an example has been found in Poland. One of the other coins is only the second of its kind to have been found.

   Archaeologist Dan Carlsson told Svenska Dagbladet that the coins were "very well preserved, and come from a period about which we know little in terms of coin history."

   The English coins are likely to have been paid to the Vikings as an incitement to let them live in peace, he said.

   Gotland is one of the richest sources anywhere of buried Viking treasure. Discoveries of coins and other treasure are made on a regular basis.

http://www.thelocal.se/8484/20070914/

[Bart]

The recently found hoards from Spillings farm on Gotland, Sweden



By Ola Korp�s, Per Widerstr�m and Jonas Str�m

   Gotland is rich in historical remains and traces from times long ago. Throughout the years many artefacts from our past have been found on the island. Especially remarkable are the large amounts of silver that have been found here, for example more English coins have been found on the tiny island of Gotland than in England itself.



   One of the more, if not the most, spectacular phenomena is the large, or even huge, amount of silver hoards that have been found in different parts of Gotland. In fact, more than seven hundred silver hoards have been found on the island. And that figure only takes into account the hoards that have been registered in modern times.



   Most of the hoards have been found when farming, during road construction and other more or less scientific ways. In the early summer of 1999 the biggest hoard so far was found at Spillings farm in Othem parish, situated in the Northeastern part of Gotland. Personnel from the Gotland Fornsal Museum in Visby found the hoard with a metal detector after the landowner had brought the archaeologists' attention to the place.



   While working with the metal detector in a field near the Spillings farm the metal detector gave a sharp signal and when placed closer to object beneath the surface of the soil Jonas Str�m, who is an expert in the use of such detectors, noted a new observation. The display on the metal detector showed the sign "overload", a clear indication that this find was something out of the "ordinary".



   When archaeologists had started working on the excavation of the find, the work with the metal detector continued and once again its display showed the "overload" sign! This was only 3 meters from the first one, but the ground at Spillings had even more to give to the archaeologists. Only 1 m from the second silver hoard the metal detector indicated another large find. A hoard containing bronze objects was revealed; most of them destroyed, cut or burnt, pieces or bronze artefacts.

   Some of it was melted together in a big chunk of melted bronze. It is considered to be a scrap metal deposit. It seems like a chest of bronzes exported from the Baltic countries of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia to Gotland, probably meant to be melted down and remade into a more local type of jewellery.



Hoard 1

   Two silver hoards of this size within three meters of each other must be seen as something extraordinary, even on Gotland! The first hoard, hereafter hoard 1, measured 40x50 cm on the surface. In the first layers of hoard 1 we found Arabic coins, bracelets, arm-rings and bars all made out of silver. Hoard 1 was excavated at the site and the work was problematic when the silver in the hoard had been exposed to a chemical process, which coloured the surface of the objects purple and made them fragile. The bracelets were twisted into each other and in some cases it seems that they have been put together in certain weights to correspond to a weight system used during the Viking Age. A proper English term for this is "Ringmoney".



   This term that does not exist in Swedish, but most definitely should! The majority of the coins in hoard 1 were found in the bottom placed in a small wooden chest. This was also taken in for closer examination in the laboratory at the museum. The coins have not yet been counted due to the chemical process but there are approximately between 3000 and 4000 silver coins. All of them are Arabic dirhems. The shrine the coins were placed in measures approximately 17x18 cm. The total weight of hoard 1 is about 25 kg.

Hoard 2

   Hoard 2 was not exposed to the same aggressive chemical process as hoard 1 and was removed as a mass for excavation in the laboratory where it could be examined carefully. Preparation of a silver hoard this size had never before been done on Gotland. Everything went well except that a stone obstructed the metal plate used to slide under the hoard before lifting it up from the ground. After overcoming that minor problem the hoard was taken indoors and the examination could begin.

   This hoard was investigated from the bottom. The second hoard showed to be even bigger then hoard 1 and not only that, the objects were in better condition. In hoard nr. 2, 312 arm-rings, 20 bars, 30 bracelets, 20 finger-rings and approximately 14,300 silver coins were found. The majority were Arabic coins from the Sassanidian dynasty from the mid-7th century, Ummajadian coins from the 8th century and Abbasidian coins from the 9th century. The TPQ, the youngest coins in the hoards are dated to 866-867. That is also is the preliminary dating for the deposition of the hoard/ hoards.



   Johan Landgren, the numismatic who will continue his work with the hoards from Spillings in the future, made this dating. Therefore I want to remind readers that this is a still preliminary figure. The few coins that are not Arabic are a coin from the Byzatine Empire struck for Basileos I at 867, and two other so-called Hedeby coins minted around 825. Most of the coins have not yet been fully examined, but Johan Landgren has browsed through them and divided them into groups of younger and older coins. The youngest group has been examined pretty carefully explaining why its estimated age is considered as a probable date. The total weight of hoard 2 is about 40 kg.

Silver hoards

   Silver hoards have traditionally been interpreted as having been buried in the ground during violent times and then forgotten. The general interpretation is that the silver has been hidden in the ground within the farm property, mainly within a building. Too few larger archaeological investigations have been made at the places where silver was found and the question of where the silver was kept during the Viking Age has never had received a proper answer.



   When the silver was removed from the ground only the small area of the hoard itself was excavated or salvaged and the area around was hardly ever investigated. This is mainly due to the costs involved with the necessary archaeological excavations. The main question discussed was why the hoards were hidden and also what the reason was for the large amount of silver found on Gotland. The silver hoards mostly contain silver coins but also bracelets, finger-rings, brooches, pieces of silver and rarely gold coins. The coins in the hoards dated before 970 are mostly of eastern origin and those after 970 are of western origin, mainly from England and Germany.

1977

   A project, named The Hoard Project, with the main purpose of investigating the places where silver hoards have been found, began on Gotland. The silver itself has been the object of many studies but the sites where it was found have never undergone any deeper scientific studies, with the exception of Majvor �stergren's research "Mellan stengrund och stenhus" from 1989 that singles itself out in this field of work.

   The project undertook new investigations in the places were the hoards have been found both from archive studies and with the help of metal detectors and archaeological excavations. Another reason for starting the project was also to excavate the sites before people with less scientific motives did. The plundering and looting of historical monuments was, and still is, a big problem on Gotland and of course the silver hoards are the object of special interest for looters. In the early nineties the Swedish government passed a law restricting the use of all metal detectors in Sweden.

   With new excavations at sites where silver hoards have been found, archaeologists wanted to study the link between the silver hoards and settlements from the same time. On Gotland many settlements from the early Iron Age (up to 500 AD) are visible in the landscape because of the stones used to build the walls. In the younger phase of the Iron Age houses were made of wood, making settlements from that era hard to find. In the end of the 1960's Lena Thunmark and Gustav Trotzig carried out the first larger excavation at Burge in Lummelunda where a silver hoard had been found during cultivation in 1967. Their excavations showed that the hoard had been placed inside the walls of a house (Thunmark & Trotzig 1971: 97).

   Later excavations at sites where silver hoards have been found provide us with archaeological information showing a similar pattern to the Burge investigation. Silver hoards seem to be connected with settlements from the same period. Materials found at the sites are of typical settlement character, ceramics, nails, bones and postholes.

Bronze hoards

   Hoarding as a phenomenon in archaeological material is well worth a discussion, as it seems to appear all over but there is little known about it. Hoards might consist of iron, bronze, silver or gold; valuable goods from the specific period in any case. They might be hidden from enemies or placed in pattern to create a territorial borderline, or they might be seen as ceremonial offers, as gifts to gods for religious purposes. On Gotland, as mentioned earlier, more than 700 silver hoards have been found. One or more are added to this number every year. Bronze hoards are more rare.

   The number of bronze hoards is uncertain but if not correct, one more or less, this is the fifth found on Gotland. Therefore perhaps this hoard has been slightly neglected in the way not only the media but also we, the archaeologists have presented the major find from Spillings farm. This find is not as large, not as valuable today and not as glimmering as the polished silver, but still, it can provide us with archaeological facts that will increase our knowledge about trade in a way "another" silver hoard cannot. This is not meant to be patronising but, while more silver hoards provide more factual information, a rare find results in more new knowledge and equally important- it arouses more questions.

In this short description we will focus on the hoards from Spillings.

   The bronze hoard was found only 1 meter from silver hoard 2. The hoard contained dress-pins, arm- and neck-rings, bracelets, mountings and pieces of melted bronze. Most of the objects were destroyed, cut in pieces or half melted. Perhaps destroyed by fire would be an appropriate expression. Indubitable evidence of wood and large iron-mountings showed that the bronze had been kept in some kind of a wooden container.

   Judging from the iron-mountings the container was a chest. During the excavation well-preserved pieces of a solid lock for the chest appeared. Many of the bronze pieces had been exposed to a high temperature and a big chunk of bronze artefacts was melted together at the bottom of the hoard. The bronze hoard can be seen as raw material for bronze casting. The bronze objects that were found were all of Baltic type. At the moment nothing specific can be said regarding the dating of the objects. Hopefully a planned Swedish-Baltic project, still in an early phase, will be able to provide some vital answers concerning dating the hoard and the objects within it. An answer from the radiocarbon dating laboratory is expected soon.

The weight of the bronze hoard was approximately 20 kg.

   All these three hoards seem to have been hidden within a building; all three within the same building shown in the picture to the right. The line in the lower right hand corner measuring 10 meters indicates the scale. North is upwards as a small arrow above the big trench shows. The smaller squares are test pits. The eastern one, in the top right corner, showed traces from a house, with an easily recognisable clay floor level. In that one we also found a great deal of ceramics and animal bones.

   We have tried to show the situation of the house with the dotted line in the picture. The dark areas within the trench are areas with stones and darker soil. Wooden remains probably belonging to a roof were found and laboratory results will indicate if the hoards and the building belong to the same time period. This and other questions will hopefully be answered when test results arrive and other analyses are all done.

This article was originally published in Viking Heritage Magazine 4/2000

[Administration]

One of my daughters often spends part of her summer vacations in Gotland, which is central to movement across the Baltic.


Gotland
History

The island is the home of the Gutar (the Gotlanders) and sites such as Ajvide show that it has been occupied since prehistory. Early on Gotland became a commercial center and the town of Visby was the most important Hanseatic city in the Baltic Sea. The island had in late medieval time twenty district courts (tings), each represented at the island-ting, called landsting, by its elected judge. New laws were decided at the landsting, which also took other decisions regarding the island as a whole.


Visby city wall, near the North gate

The Gutasaga contains legends of how the island was settled by �ieluar and populated by his descendants. It also tells that a third of the population had to emigrate and settle in southern Europe, a tradition associated with the migration of the Goths, whose name has the same origin as Gutar, the native name of the people of the island. It later tells that the Gotlanders voluntarily submitted to the king of Sweden and asserts that it is based on mutual agreements, and notes the duties and obligations of the Swedish King and Bishop in relationship to Gotland. It is therefore not only an effort to write down the history of Gotland, but also an effort to assert Gotland's independence from Sweden.

It gives Awair Strabain as the man who arranged the mutually beneficial agreement with the king of Sweden, and the event would have taken place before the end of the 9th century, when Wulfstan of Hedeby reported that the island was subject to the Swedes:

    Then, after the land of the Burgundians, we had on our left the lands that have been called from the earliest times Blekingey, and Meore, and Eowland, and Gotland, all which territory is subject to the Sweons; and Weonodland was all the way on our right, as far as Weissel-mouth. [1]

The city of Visby and rest of the island were governed separately and a civil war caused by conflicts between the German merchants in Visby and the trading peasants on the countryside had to be put down by King Magnus III of Sweden in 1288. In 1361, Waldemar Atterdag of Denmark invaded the island. The Victual Brothers occupied the island in 1394 to set up a stronghold headquarters on their own in Visby. At last Gotland came as a fiefdom of the Teutonic Knights, awarded to them on the condition that they expel the piratical Victual Brothers from their fortified sanctuary. An invasion army of Teutonic Knights conquered the island in 1398, destroying Visby and driving the Victual Brothers from Gotland.


Picture stone found at Tj�ngvide on the Swedish island of Gotland. This stone is now kept at the Statens Historiska Museet at Navavagen, Sweden. The top scene shows Odin astride his eight-legged horse Sleipnir approaching Valhalla. The bottom scene depicts a Viking warship.

The number of Arab dirhams discovered on the island of Gotland alone is astoundingly high. In the various hoards located around the island, there are more of these silver coins than any other site in Western Eurasia. The total sum is almost as great as the number that has been unearthed in the entire Muslim world. These coins moved North through trade between Rus merchants and the Abbasid Caliphate, along the Silver-Fur Road, and the money made by Scandinavian merchants would help Northern Europe, especially Viking Scandinavia and the Carolingian Empire, as major commercial centers for the next several centuries.

The authority of the landsting was successively eroded after the island was occupied by the Teutonic Order, then sold to Eric of Pomerania and after 1449 ruled by Danish governors. In late medieval times, the ting consisted of twelve representatives for the farmers, free-holders or tenants. Since the Treaty of Br�msebro in 1645, the island has remained under Swedish rule.

Culture

The medieval town of Visby has been entered as a site of the UNESCO World heritage program. An impressive feature of Visby is the fortress wall that surrounds the old city, dating from the time of the Hanseatic League.

The inhabitants of Gotland traditionally spoke their own language, known as Gutnish. Today however, they have adapted a dialect of Swedish that is known as "Gotl�ndska". In the 13th century, a work containing the laws of the island, called "The Gotlandic law" (Guta lagen), was published in the ancient Gutnish language.

Gotland is famous for its 94 medieval[7] churches, most of which are restored and in active use. These churches exhibit two major styles of architecture: Romanesque and Gothic. The older churches were constructed in the Romanesque style from 1150�1250 A.D. The newer churches were constructed in the Gothic architectural style that prevailed from about 1250 to 1400 A.D. The oldest painting inside one of the churches on Gotland stretches as far back in time as the 12th Century.

Traditional games of skill like Kubb, P�rk, and Varpa are played on Gotland. They are part of what has become called "Gutniska Lekar", and are performed preferably on the Midsummer�s Eve celebration on the island, but also throughout the summer months. The games have widespread renown; some of them are played by people as far away as in the United States.

Gotland also has a rich heritage of folklore, including myths about the bysen, Di sma undar jordi, Hoburgsgubben and the Martebo lights.

References
   1. See Goths and Scandza for more information on this matter.
   2. a b Laufeld, S. (1974). Silurian Chitinozoa from Gotland, Fossils and Strata. Universitetsforlaget.
   3. Creer 1973
   4. Gray, Laufield & Boucot, 1974
   5. Long, D.G.F. (1993). "The Burgsvik beds, an Upper Silurian storm generated sand ridge complex in southern Gotland". Geologiska F�reningens i Stockholms F�rhandlingar (GFF) 115: 299�309. ISSN 0016-786X.
   6. Laufeld, Sven; Martinsson, Anders (22�28 August, 1981). "Reefs and ultrashallow environments. Guidebook to the field excursions in the Silurian of Gotland". Project Ecostratigraphy Plenary Meeting.
   7. Gotland is famous for its 94 medieval churches

Downloads:
A cemetery in Gr�tlingbo and Fide parishes, Gotland, Sweden, c. AD 1-1100. Excavations and finds 1826-1971
Studies of Late Iron Age Gotland
Metal working at Fr�jel Viking age harbour, Gotland, Sweden

[Bart]

A Viking Silver hoard from Gotland, Sweden

Associate Professor Dan Carlsson

Gotland Silver Island

   Few places in the world have such a tremendous wealth of silver hoards. More then 700 hoards have been found on the island, spread fairly evenly over most of the cultivated part of the island. Hoards have been found on the island since the 17th century, but most of the hoards have come to light during late 19th century, in connection to an extensive cultivation of new land for agriculture. At the same time, the depth of the ploughing has been deeper, and as a result this was the period when most of the silver hoards came to light. In many cases, there has been very little of investigations of the places where the hoards were found a long time ago.

    The normal  procedure has been to take up what has been found at the direct site. But in many cases, the integrity of the hoards has been destroyed and the items spread out over a bigger area over time, meaning that the coins and the other silver objects have been spread over a very wide area. But normally the hoards are not very much spread out, and it is most of the time rather easy to get an idea of where exactly the centre of the hoard has been.

   Still, there are many places where only minor excavations or research has taken place to follow up of the discovery of a hoard. During spring 2005, I got the mission from the County Administration of Gotland to follow up 5 different places where hoards have been found in the past and where most of the material had been collected. The aim of this new investigation into these old sites was to recover any coins or other silver objects that might still be in the ground, in a way to get there before the robbers. Because, we do have a serious problem on Gotland with treasure hunting people, even if it is totally forbidden to use a metal detector on the island what so ever, without permission.

   In any case, I got the mission to follow up some of theses places. The work was carried out during autumn 2005 spending a day or two on each site. In most of the cases there turned out to be many coins and other silver objects still in the ground, even though the land has been ploughed for 50 year or more after the hoard was found. I am now planning to make a CD-R about these investigations with high-resolution photos. I would also give an account of the Spillings hoard, its contents, about the excavations etc., being the biggest silver hoard ever found in the Viking world (67 kilos!).

   Just to wake your appetite, I will give you an example of what it will include. It has to be remembered that Gotland is rather flat, and it is really difficult in a ploughed landscape to get an idea of where there might have been a settlement from Viking Age. It should be known in this context that most of the hoards are actually found in houses or close to houses from the Viking Age, in other words � the Jonas Str�m and Per Widerstr�m working with the metal detector in a chilly day in October. In spite of the rather high vegetation, we succceded to get hold of 30 coins, spread out over an area of some 20 x 30 meters. Photo Dan Carlsson. hoards give us a clear indication of where the farms have been.

Arabic silver hoard from the western part of Gotland



   The first place I worked on is situated along the western coast of Gotland. At this site, a silver hoards was found some 50 years ago as a result of agricultural work. We know more or less where the hoard was found, since some information was gathered at the time of the hoard being found.

   We investigated an area of about 1 ha, and came across 30 Arabic coins and a bit of a silver bar. The coins were very well preserved, and most of them were complete. Many times when we find a hoard, the coins are divided into smaller fragments, as a result of weighting the silver in connection to trade.

   As a result of our investigations, we could tell that the hoard had been placed rather close to a small river that could have been used for small boats in the Viking Age. It might even be that the place has served as a trading and meeting place in theViking Age, since it is a meeting point between the river and a road leading from north to south along the coast.