Treasure seeker with metal detector discovers record-shattering Viking Age fortune

A metal detectorist in Finland unearthed a massive Viking Age silver hoard estimated to contain more than 4,000 coins — the largest discovery of its kind ever found in the country.The hoard, uncovered by metal detectorist Kalle Lappinen, was found near the village center of Sysmä, a town about 105 miles northeast of Helsinki.Lappinen discovered the hoard on Sept.3 and promptly reported it to authorities.

Archaeologists from Lahti Museums began recovering the silver the very next day.The hoard consists of “thousands of silver coins, hack silver, a silver bracelet, a mount and a bead,” according to a museum release.The hoard includes coins from present-day Sweden, Britain, and Germany, as well as dirhams originating from areas that are now part of Turkey and Iran.The recovered coins weigh approximately 10 pounds in total and are believed to date to between 1000 and 1050 A.D., as Lahti Museum’s archaeologist Esko Tikkala told Fox News Digital.Tikkala oversaw the hoard’s recovery.He said the dating remains preliminary and will be refined after the coins have been cleaned and thoroughly studied.While Tikkala has excavated other Late Iron Age hoards in the region, he said the sheer size of the Sysmä discovery surprised him.“Instead of the tens or few hundreds of coins we usually encounter, this find contains thousands,” he said.Even at this preliminary stage, Tikkala said the discovery adds to evidence that Sysmä was an important hub during the Late Iron Age, with trade connections extending in multiple directions.“Today, Sysmä might be regarded as a relatively modest and peripheral place, but judging from the Late Iron Age archaeological material, the situation seems to have been very different a thousand years ago,” he said.The hoard also contains more than twice as many coins as Finland’s previously largest known Viking Age coin hoard, which was unearthed in Nousiainen in 1895 and contained approximately 1,700 coins, Tikkala added.The identity...