A Hoard of Harald Bluetooth

A boy has made a major find:
Braided necklaces, pearls, brooches, a Thor’s hammer, rings and up to 600 chipped coins were found, including more than 100 that date back to Bluetooth’s era, when he ruled over what is now Denmark, northern Germany, southern Sweden and parts of Norway.

“This trove is the biggest single discovery of Bluetooth coins in the southern Baltic Sea region and is therefore of great significance,” the lead archaeologist, Michael Schirren, told national news agency DPA.

The oldest coin is a Damascus dirham dating to 714 while the most recent is a penny dating to 983.

The find suggests that the treasure may have been buried in the late 980s – also the period when Bluetooth was known to have fled to Pomerania, where he died in 987.
That late a date means that it would have been after Bluetooth's conversion to Christianity. Bluetooth is, of course, the king with whom the protagonists of The Long Ships feasted one memorable Yule. He is also the namesake of those "Bluetooth" devices you see everywhere; the logo is a bindrune of his initials, the runic forms of H and then B.

3 comments:

Tom said...

I loved "The Long Ships" when I was a boy right up until a particular monk destroyed the story for me.

I always kinda wondered about the tech name "bluetooth."

Lars Walker said...

I love "The Long Ships," in spite of the monk. Author Bengtsson treats Christians and heathens about equally, and there are good Christians in the book.

This is a very cool find, and is raising a lot of excitement among Viking buffs.

Tom said...

My objection isn't that he is a monk. It's really to how Bengtsson treats Orm; the monk is just the method.

It is a very cool find, nonetheless.