Up in northern Gotland, in early september, a house owner is digging in his very small kitchen garden, in the same way that he has done for the last 20 years. He turns the soil up side down, and leave it as usual that way until next spring. But a heavy rain in the night, turns into a fascinating discovery next morning. On top of the soil, cleaned by the rain, were two silver coins from the Viking Age!
The discovery of the two coins led to an archaeological excavation, and it turned out to be a small, but well preserved Viking silver hoard, consisting of at least 54 coins (further excavations will be carried out soon).
The hoard is rather small to be from Gotland, but it contained some remarkable Swedish coins (besides English, German and Arabic coins), minted for King Olof Skötkonung from Sigtuna. Two of the coins were of a sort that previously only hade been found in just one example (coin number 42 and 50, the last in Poland).
To see the coins, visit the photo gallery
