It may look a bit like a rope at first glance. But the rare find that was made in Inderøy in Trøndelag this autumn is something quite different. It is a bracelet made from a whole piece of gold and twisted in a spiral shape. Near the ends, the shape is smoothed and decorated with transverse bands. – Discoveries like this are very rare. That’s what senior advisor in Trøndelag County Municipality, Harald Bugge Midthjell, says. Only two similar pieces of jewelery are said to have been found in Norway previously. May have been a special gift. It was in a field on Sund in Inderøy that the piece of jewelry was discovered. And the man behind is called Ingar Karlsen. He is one of many in the area looking for metal detectors large and small. – Everything was done according to all the rules of art really. He contacted us as soon as he made the discovery, says Midthjell. As far as is known, only two such pieces of jewelery have previously been found in Norway. In Avaldsnes on Karmøy and Hodne on Jæren. They were both found in large burial mounds with stone chambers, together with bronze weapons. The weapons, the grave type and the decor can be dated to the older part of the Bronze Age, that is 1700 to 1100 BC. The bracelets have been interpreted as alliance gifts from contact with people in Denmark, explains Midthjell. – So it’s quite unique that one has appeared in Trøndelag now. The senior advisor says that many similar discoveries have been made in Denmark. – It shows that Trøndelag may have been part of a contact network, which stretches from the south-west to Denmark. And that already in the older Bronze Age. Senior advisor Harald Bugge Midthjell and section leader Anne Bjørg Evensen Svestad. They work at the cultural heritage section in Trøndelag county municipality. Photo: Håvard Zeiner / Trøndelag county municipality Must be handed in All loose finds older than 1537, coins older than 1650 and Sami finds older than 1918 are the property of the state. You have an obligation to hand them in. The National Archives is considering whether a finder’s fee should be given to finders and landowners when valuable and rare objects are found. At Sund in Inderøy, there used to be many burial mounds, but several of them have been removed over the years. Today, there are 23 known gravestones on this farm in Trøndelag. And most of them are concentrated along a strong moraine ridge just to the west of the farm. A collection of 22 skeletons from the Bronze Age was found here in 1967. These were in concentrations that gave the impression of being mass graves. The recently discovered bracelet can be dated to the same period as the skeletons, and has probably been in a grave similar to those found at Jæren and in Avaldsnes. Who was the owner? Who may have owned the valuable bracelet, one can only speculate. And so does Harald Bugge Midthjell. – The valuable jewellery, large burial monuments and a mass grave may indicate a society with an emerging social inequality, which manifests itself through signs of warfare. Perhaps there was already a rich chief on Sund back then who led people in war against their neighbours? Or perhaps the bracelet belonged to a person who was richly adorned by virtue of his sanctity? Now the rare object is making its way to Trondheim. There it will be handed over to the Science Museum.
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Unique gold bracelet from the Early Bronze Age found in Inderøy in Trøndelag – news Trøndelag – Local news, TV and radio
