Going out with a metal detector can turn up all kinds of forgotten objects, but one man’s search in Finland led to something much bigger than a few old coins.
Metal detectorist Kalle Lappinen discovered a massive collection of Viking Age silver near the village center of Sysmä, Finland, according to reporting by Fox News Digital. The find is estimated to contain more than 4,000 coins and is believed to be the largest discovery of its kind ever found in the country.
Image Credit: (Esko Tikkala/Lahti Museums)
The discovery started with a metal detector
Lappinen made the discovery on Sept. 3 near Sysmä, a town roughly 105 miles northeast of Helsinki. Rather than continuing to excavate the site himself, he reported what he’d found to authorities.
Archaeologists from Lahti Museums responded quickly and began recovering the silver the following day. Archaeologist Esko Tikkala, who oversaw the recovery, told Fox News that the dating was still preliminary.
The sheer size of the find is what makes it particularly remarkable. The hoard is estimated to contain more than 4,000 silver coins, weighing about 10 pounds in total.
The coins came from several parts of the world
The collection wasn’t made up of coins from a single place. Coins in the hoard originated in areas that are now Sweden, Britain, and Germany, along with dirhams linked to regions that are now part of Turkey and Iran.
That mix makes the discovery particularly interesting for researchers because the individual pieces may help provide information about the movement of silver and currency during the period.
The hoard may be around 1,000 years old
Based on the preliminary dating, the silver is believed to be from roughly A.D. 1000 to 1050. That means the coins and other objects had been underground for close to 1,000 years before a metal detector led to their discovery.
Further examination will be needed to learn more about the individual coins and establish a more precise date for the collection.
It could be Finland’s largest find of its kind
With more than 4,000 coins estimated to be part of the discovery, it is considered the largest Viking Age silver hoard ever uncovered in Finland.
What began as a metal detector search ultimately led archaeologists to thousands of ancient coins, roughly 10 pounds of silver, and a collection that had remained hidden underground for centuries. Now, researchers have the much longer job of studying exactly what was found and what it can reveal about the people who left it there.
