CHAPTER XIII.

NORTHERN RELICS—GROUND FINDS.

The custom of hiding objects—Discovery of numerous golden objects near the surface—Necklaces of gold—Golden horns discovered at Mögletönder—The Bangstrup find.

The objects found in the earth, and classified under the name of _ground finds_, are often not only very valuable but also very beautiful; in many instances they are of the same type and period as those of the bogs and graves. The custom of intentionally hiding objects which existed in the stone and bronze age lasted until the end of the Viking age, and one of the finest archæological fields in the whole of Scandinavia is that of Broholm, situated on the island of Fyen. These finds are divided into three principal groups, viz.:—Lundeborg, Gudme, and Elsehoved. Almost all the objects were so near the surface of the soil that they were discovered either when ploughing, or digging with a spade.

Among the finest and most valuable objects found in the North were the two superb golden horns discovered at Mögeltönder on the peninsula of Jutland, which were once the pride of the great Museum of Northern Antiquities in Copenhagen.

They were without equals in any part of the world; their exterior was made of different bands of gold, with figures in repoussé work, fastened to the harder gold of the body of the horn. Both were stolen from the old Danish Museum on the 4th of May, 1802, and the ignorant thief melted them; thus those two superb specimens were for ever lost to science, and with an unfortunate fatality the cast of each has also been lost; but luckily the drawings made can be relied on. The thief was captured a year after, and his punishment was not adequate to the crime he had committed.

The representations given upon them must have had a meaning; these were symbolical, and were probably very significant and not used for mere ornamentation; what the figures and symbolical signs meant is impossible for us to tell. Among the most remarkable of the former is the three-headed man, holding in one hand what appears to be an axe, while with the other he leads some kind of horned animal.

_Bangstrup Find (Fyen)._—Conspicuous among many remarkable finds is the Bangstrup find (Fyen, 1865), in which rings of gold used as money, ornaments of peculiar shape, and 46 gold Roman coins, which were pierced or had a loop attached to the top, were discovered. The coins, ranging from the time of Trajanus Decius (249–251) to that of Constantine II. (337–351), give an approximate idea of the time of the deposit of the find; for, while most of the earlier coins are well worn, the later ones are very well preserved and the coinage is very sharp and clear, thus indicating that they cannot have been long in circulation. As the dates of these later coins are about 340–350, the find cannot have been buried much later than that time.

The crescent-shaped ornaments have, so far as is known, never been found elsewhere in the North; but in the Ukraine similar ones have been discovered, and are described in the work “Account of the Mounds, &c., of the Government of Kiew,” by Privy Councillor J. Foundoukleï, Kief, 1848.

BANGSTRUP FIND.