A HOMEOWNER digging up their garden has unearthed Denmark’s largest ever Viking silver hoard.
Around 700 objects were discovered in the Rebild area, including bracelets, silver bars, coins and a tiny hammer linked to the Norse god Thor.
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The incredible haul was found after the homeowner began removing grass, stones and gravel to make way for a new tiled terrace.
Around 320 of the objects, weighing a total of 6.4kg, were still inside their original clay vessel.
The remaining treasures were scattered through the soil around the site.
The hoard is believed to have been buried sometime in the 10th century, during the Viking Age.
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It includes 47 complete coins and fragments, along with cut-up pieces of silver and numerous other objects.
The find is almost three times larger than Denmark‘s previous biggest Viking Age silver hoard.
That treasure, known as the Terslev Hoard, weighed around 6.5kg when it was discovered in 1911.
The anonymous finder said the discovery came after just half an hour of digging.
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They said: “It should have just been a few hours of hard gardening work removing stubborn grass, stones and gravel for a new tiled terrace, but it turned out to be the biggest surprise of my life.
“After half an hour of digging, my grip hit something that made a strange sound.
“At first I thought it was old iron or fence wire and some potsherds, but when I started digging with my hands, I was suddenly able to fish one metal object after another out of the ground.
“After a short period of careful work, I realised that it was jewellery, coins and silver bars.”
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Torben Sarauw, cultural heritage manager and archaeologist at Nordjyske Museer, described the discovery as hugely important for understanding the Viking Age.
He said: “This is a find of great importance for our understanding of the Viking Age in Denmark.
“Not just because of its size, but also because the treasure so clearly shows how silver functioned as wealth and a means of payment in the Viking Age.
“It’s like finding a safe from the Viking Age.”
The hoard also contains a puzzling clue in the form of a silver bar engraved with runes.
The inscription can possibly be read as “hutu”, although its exact meaning remains unclear.
It could have been a name, an ownership mark or another significant marking.
According to Nordjyske Museer, silver bars, jewellery and scrap silver were used as payment and as a store of value during the Viking Age.
The weight of the silver was crucial, meaning it was often cut into smaller pieces, divided up or melted down.
The unusually large number of silver bars in the hoard appear to have been grouped according to particular weight ranges.
The same pattern can be seen in pieces of bracelets and scrap silver.
Archaeologists say this suggests the treasure was carefully organised rather than simply thrown together.
The haul also contains both Arab and Anglo-Saxon coins, offering a glimpse into the vast trading networks of the Viking Age.
Mr Sarauw said: “That’s what’s fascinating about the find.
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“The silver was hidden in Rebild, but it points to a much larger world.
“The coins reveal that there were connections to the Islamic world in the east and England to the west, as well as a Viking Age where people, goods and values moved over enormous distances.”