Teenager finds a 10th-century Viking treasure in Germany
Historians assume that his reign left as a legacy a unified Denmark and converted to Christianity, but Harald Gormsson also apparently left something else: a treasure buried on the island Rügen, near Schaprode in Germany, which was just discovered by two amateur archaeologists, one of them is only 13 years old.
The find includes rings, brooches, pearls, braided necklaces, a hammer of Thor and up to 600 split coins, of which at least 100 correspond to the time when Gormsson - who was also known as Harald Bluetooth - ruled over what today is Denmark, northern Germany, southern Sweden and parts of Norway, between the years 958 and 986 approximately. Bluetooth led military campaigns against the Frankish nobles who ruled parts of France and Germany during the Carolingian era. In the year 950, he converted to Christianity and established several dioceses in Denmark. However, around the year 980 he was forced to flee to Pomerania, after being defeated in a naval battle by forces loyal to his son Sweyn Forkbeard, who took the Danish throne.
In recent times, his name was honored by the Scandinavian technology companies that dubbed the technology that they developed for the wireless connection of digital devices called "Bluetooth". The discovery of these ancient pieces was made last January by René Schön and his student Luca Malaschnitschenko, 13 years old, who belong to a group of archeology enthusiasts and were looking for treasures in an area of the north of Rügen Island using a metal detector.
Then they stumbled over what they thought was a worthless piece of aluminum. However, on closer inspection they realized that it was a silver coin. What happened was kept secret until a team of experts was mobilized to carry out excavations in an area of about 400 square meters. "This treasure is the biggest find of Bluetooth coins in the southern region of the Baltic Sea and, therefore, has great importance," said Michael Schirren, the lead archaeologist in charge of the excavations.
The discovery site, Schaprode, is located a few kilometers from Hiddensee, where in the nineteenth century was found a set of 16 pieces of gold from the time of this Viking king. Experts believe that the treasure was buried at the same time that Gormsson fled to Pomerania, where he died in 987. "This is the unusual case of a discovery that seems to corroborate what the historical sources say," said archaeologist Detlef Jantzen.
