A farmer at Hjuksebø in the county of Telemark says it was just a matter of luck and coincidence that he hadn’t destroyed a Viking sword with his plowing over the years. The sword was found just before the weekend at his lakefront farm south of the city of Notodden.
Local newspaper Telen reported that the sword was found by a friend of farmer Nils Angard who’d been out wandering with a metal detector. They started digging and found the intact sword in what’s believed to be a grave from the Iron Age.
County archaeologist Katrine Dahl was called in and given the honour of lifting the sword up from its resting place just below the surface of the field between Angard’s cherry trees. It will likely be placed in the University of Oslo’s collection of historic treasures from Viking times, called the oldsaksamling.
It’s not the first time that Viking treasures have turned up on Angard’s farm. In 1982 he unearthed a rangle, a metal device made up of small rings that was used like sleighbells, and a hoe. Both are preserved at the university’s museum in Oslo and were dated as being from between the years 300 and 1050.
newsinenglish.no staff
