At first the Norwegian thought his metal detector was responding to chocolate money buried in the ground. It turned out to be nine necklaces, three rings and 10 gold pearls, and therefore it was called the gold find of the century in the country.

The rare find was made this summer by 51-year-old Erlend Bore on the southern island of Rennesøy, near the city of Stavanger. Bohr bought his first metal detector as a hobby earlier this year after his doctor told him to go outside instead of sitting on the couch.

Ole Madsen, director of the Archaeological Museum at the University of Stavanger, said it was “extremely unusual to find so much gold at once.”

“This is the gold find of the century in Norway,” Madsen said.

In August, Bore began wandering the mountainous island with his metal detector. The university said in a statement that it initially found debris but later discovered something “absolutely unreal”: a treasure weighing just over 100 grams (3.5 ounces). According to Norwegian law, objects produced before 1537 and coins older than 1650 are considered state property and must be transferred.

Museum associate professor Håkon Reyersen said the flat, thin, one-sided gold medals, called bracteates, date to about 500 AD, the so-called Norse Migration Period, which spanned between 400 and 550, a time of widespread migrations. in Europe.

The pendants and gold pearls were part of a “very magnificent necklace” made by skilled jewelers and worn by the most influential members of society, Ryersen said. She added that “a similar discovery has not been made in Norway since the 19th century, and this is also a very unusual discovery in the Scandinavian context.”

Professor Sigmund Erl, an expert on such pendants from the same museum, said that about 1,000 gold bracteates have been found so far in Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

The symbols on the necklaces often show the Norse god Odin healing his son’s sick horse, he said. Oerl said the horse’s tongue on Rennesoy’s necklaces was hanging from the gold pendants, and “its slumped posture and crooked legs indicate injury.”

“The horse symbol symbolized illness and pain, but it also symbolized hope for healing and new life,” he added.

The find is planned to be exhibited at the S. Archaeological Museum.