The case in summary: Jan Gunnar Fuglsnes and his brother found 14 old coins under the church floor as children. He never said that they were found under the church. 60 years later, archaeologists have examined the coins, which probably date from between 1270 and 1319. The coins are typical of Magnus Lagabøte’s coins, with the exception of one coin belonging to Christian I. Fuglsnes gave the coins to the county archaeologist in exchange for more information about the find. The coins will now be sent on to the Science Museum for further investigations. The find can tell more about society on Edøy, which is said to have been an important center of power in the Iron Age. The summary is made by an AI service from OpenAi. The content is quality assured by news’s journalists before publication. – We managed to go through that crack there, and then we found a coin quite early on. Then the gold rush started, says Jan Gunnar Fugelsnes. The crack has gotten a little bigger, but the 67-year-old still has to crawl to get under the basement of the stone church from 1190. With a broom and sieve for his mother, he stood in the early 60s and played hobby archaeologist. The zeal was great. But no one could find out that they had been there and crawled in layers of corpses and bone remains. – It was sacrilegious to say that we were under the church and searching, so there was no question of coming with the full and complete truth. Then we said we found it in the gunner’s trench outside here, says Fugelsnes. Archaeologist Jan Gunnar Fugelsnes played with sieves and brooms under the old church, but the finds were very real. Photo: Marius André Jenssen Stenberg / news Myntane had stored in a box meant for old slides, which he had lying in a fire cupboard. In all these years, he has underestimated the historical usefulness of the find. – Previously, I thought they would end up in a basement in Trondheim, completely uninteresting together with lots of others. But now I understand that they are a little more special, says Fugelsnes. Probably from Magnus Lagabøte – Medieval coins are rare and few and far between, so when a total of 14 coins turned up, we are talking about quite a surprise, says county archaeologist Carl Fredrik Vemmestad. According to him, only a handful of such coins have been found in central Norway that have survived to our time. Here are some of the coins that Fugelsnes has taken care of. Photo: Marius André Jenssen Stenberg / news There were rumors that Fugelsnes was on to something exciting, and in recent years interest from archaeologists has increased. When it became clear when the coins were out, he allowed himself to be persuaded to give them up. – The coins are from between 1270 and probably 1319. You can see several heads of kings embossed on these coins, and that is typical of Magnus Lagabøte’s coins, says Vemmestad. Only a handful of such have been found. Carl Fredrik Wahr-Hansen Vemmestad works as an archaeologist with responsibility for Nordmøre in Møre and Romsdal county municipality. Photo: Marius André Jenssen Stenberg / news The exception is a coin belonging to Christian I, the ancestor of today’s royal family. He ruled Norway from 1450 to 1481. – It is incredibly exciting, because it is probably the largest collection of coins we have here in Møre og Romsdal. In a national context, it is also a very important puzzle piece. Here are several of the finds that Fugelsnes has now given to the county. Photo: Møre og Romsdal county municipality Viking ship found in 2019 The historical meaning of Edøy has become increasingly known in recent years. On the neighboring island you can find the Kulisteinen, the baptismal certificate itself for Norway. It is the first time the name of the country is mentioned. Many coin discoveries have been made in old churches such as in Edøy Old Church. The problem has been that the Germans used the church as an ammunition depot during the war, and threw out a lot of what they found. – Edøya was perhaps one of the most important centers of power in the Iron Age, that is clear. Many graves have been found there, and a Viking ship. It is also strategically located in Trondheimsleia, and two important naval battles were fought nearby, says Vemmestad. Edøy with Edøy old church. Photo: Øyvind Berge Sæbjørnsen The coins are now being sent on to the Science Museum and Jon Anders Risvaag, one of the foremost experts on old coins. Findings can help them form a complete picture of the coin situation and trade there at that time. – These are completely ordinary coins, and that is what is so exciting about it. This is what people had access to, and it is what can tell us about people’s actual lives, says Risvaag. Happy to have taken care of the Fugelsnes on Edøya, he does not have a bad conscience for not giving them away earlier. – It was a completely different time. If I hadn’t found them and taken care of them then, I think they would have been gone. Because there has never been an archaeologist who has shown an interest in under the church, maybe they didn’t know about it either. Photo: Marius André Jenssen Stenberg / news That changed when it turned out that the coins were a little more than just cellar stuff. – The agreement was that I would give them away if I got the story in return. The county archaeologist really immersed himself when he first got to grips with it, so all credit to him. It gave me much more than having them hidden away in a drawer, says Fugelsnes.
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Jan Gunnar found rare silver coins as a boy – they turn out to be of great historical value
