Danish Man Digging a Garden Finds Denmark’s Largest Viking Silver Hoard

A Danish resident preparing his garden for a new terrace struck something unusual with a garden fork. Instead of ordinary soil, he began pulling jewelry, coins and silver bars from the ground by hand.

The discovery in Rebild is the largest Viking silver hoard ever found in Denmark. It weighs 18.5 kilograms and includes about 700 objects and fragments dating from the 10th century, making it nearly three times heavier than Denmark’s previous largest Viking silver find.

About 320 objects, weighing 6.4 kilograms, were still inside the clay vessel in which the hoard was buried during the 900s. The contents include silver bars, bracelets, 47 complete coins, coin fragments, pieces of cut silver known as hacksilver and a tiny hammer of Thor.

One silver bar bears a mysterious runic inscription that archaeologists think may read “hutu,” although its meaning is not known. The coins include Arab dirhams and Anglo-Saxon currency, pointing to trading links that stretched from England to the Islamic world.

Experts say the hoard offers a rare view of how Vikings used silver. They did not rely only on coins. They weighed silver and cut or melted it when necessary. Why someone buried so much valuable metal more than 1,000 years ago and never returned for it remains an archaeological mystery.