Hiker Finds 1,500-Year-Old Gold Sword Fitting Under Fallen Tree in Norway

A hiker in Norway discovered a 1,500-year-old gold sword fitting hidden beneath a tree, in a find announced May 5 by the University of Stavanger.

The artifact turned up in the Austrått district of Sandnes, a city in southwestern Norway. It dates to the sixth century, during the Migration Period, a time of upheaval after the fall of the Roman Empire.

The anonymous hiker, a father of two who lives in Austrått, said he likes to explore and get to know the local area. After a storm felled a tree, he noticed a slight rise in the soil under it and poked at it with a stick.

"Suddenly I saw something gleaming. I didn’t quite understand what I had found," he said, according to the university release.

The item is a small gold sword fitting, about six centimeters wide. "You are completely taken by surprise when finds like this appear," the hiker said.

Officials said the sword likely belonged to a chieftain who ruled at Hove. "It is richly decorated and would have adorned a scabbard worn on a belt, from which the sword hung," the release noted.

"This is the first time such a find has been made in Rogaland, and only 17 others have been found in Northern Europe so far."

Archaeologist and University of Stavanger professor Håkon Reiersen called the find spectacular. "The odds of finding something like this are minimal," he said.

He explained that crop failures and crisis marked that era, and people likely deposited valuable objects as offerings in hopes of better times. Reiersen said the sword's owner was likely the leader in the area in the first half of the sixth century, with a retinue of loyal warriors.

"Gold scabbard fittings usually show little sign of use, but this one is worn and well used, which suggests the chieftain actually used it a great deal. It emphasized his position and power,"

Archaeologists believe the sword fragment was buried in a rock crevice as an offering to the gods.

The artifact will go on display at the Museum of Archaeology at the University of Stavanger. Museum director and professor Kristin Armstrong-Oma said she extends a big thank you to a very observant hiker.

"[The hiker gave] us a new puzzle piece connected to the power center at Hove during the Migration Period," she said. "At the museum we have some of the world’s leading researchers on such objects, which allows us to continue studying the find itself and its ornamentation and to discover new answers about the elite who ruled here at that time."