At first look, what looked to be garbage turned out to be a valuable Bronze Age treasure. By chance, orienteering enthusiast Tommy Karlsson stumbled upon a treasure trove of 50 Bronze Age artefacts going back over 2,500 years.
In the Swedish woodland of Alingss, Tommy Karlsson unearthed remarkable Bronze Age jewelry.
Karlsson isn’t a treasure seeker, so this discovery surprised him. The discovery was found while the cartographer was revising a map.
“I was standing on a ledge when out of the corner of my eye, I observed some scrap metal on the slope. It wasn’t your average scrap metal spot, so I was taken aback. But then I realized it was an item that looked like old jewelry. Jewelry that is at least a century old. In a Swedish Radio interview, Karlsson says that “it looked to be fairly novel, and not as expected.”
Karlsson contacted officials and archaeologists, who arrived to the site to inspect the items, and it was evident straight away that this was a significant discovery.
A piece of Bronze Age ornament.
The objects were buried as a gift to the Norse Gods, according to researchers. The jewelry belongs to a wealthy woman or numerous affluent women.
“The majority of the items are made up of bronze items that may be identified with a woman of considerable status from the Bronze Age,” Johan Ling, professor of archeology at the University of Gothenburg, said in a statement.
“They were used to embellish and hold up different items of clothing, presumably made of wool,” Ling added, “but there were also giant needles and eyelets used to embellish and hold up other body parts, such as necklaces, bracelets, and ankle bracelets.”
Ling goes on to say that this is one of Sweden’s most important Bronze Age discoveries.
It’s all too easy to dismiss unearthed items as trash, so it’s a good thing Tommy Karlsson looked twice, otherwise we would have never known about this significant archaeological find.
