r/history • u/TinyAd1126 • Sep 16 '26

Article Huge Viking Age silver cache discovered in Finland with metal detector by amateur archaeologist, including coins from the British Isles to Arabia

https://abcnews.com/amp/International/viking-age-silver-cache-discovered-finland-metal-detector/story?id=136369223
1.9k Upvotes

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178

u/TinyAd1126 Sep 16 '26

This discovery rewrites Finland's History regarding the Viking Age. No one knew that inland wilderness regions of Finland had international trade hubs during the Viking Age.

132

u/fiendishrabbit Sep 17 '26

Though archeologists always knew that it was a possibility. It was just a matter of finding proof.

The viking response to a river is "Let's go there" and Finlands interior has a very large amount of rivers and lakes that you can navigate if you've got the kind of boats the vikings did.

29

u/TinyAd1126 Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26

According to vaurious Finnish news sources the cache was full of Scandinavian coins too, so the connection to the Viking World is proven. It might have been an unknown Baltic Finnish population center, which rewrites totally the whole image of Viking Age Finnish population anyway. The area is the core region of Tavastians, which is one of the three main tribes of Finland. This place might have been an international trade hub too, which is even much more mind-boggling idea.

12

u/CptPicard Sep 17 '26

Why does it have to be the Vikings instead of the locals?

26

u/fiendishrabbit Sep 17 '26

Sure. It could be a baltic finn horde.

Probably not a sami silver hoard since these are typically votive offerings (while there are coins in sami votive hoards, they're typically local and there is greater weight on jewelry)

7

u/Herkus- Sep 17 '26

It was found in birch bark containers, so most likely a local Finnic horde.

24

u/fiendishrabbit Sep 17 '26

Birch bark containers doesn't say much since birch bark was the preferred material for storing silver everywhere from western Scandinavia to east of Novgorod.

The betulin oil in birch bark slows down how fast silver tarnishes.

3

u/Squumpus Sep 17 '26

it's also good as kindling

19

u/Omateido Sep 17 '26

Reminder that Viking is a profession, not an ethnicity.

-2

u/CptPicard Sep 17 '26

I kinda disagree, it's definitely something the Scandinavians did and were, and you'd think the Finns were mentioned by them more if they were in the "profession" alongside... it's too bad Iron Age Finland is so badly known historically.

8

u/Omateido Sep 17 '26

You can disagree all you want, doesn't change the fact that it's akin to saying "pirate" is an ethnicity. It's not.

4

u/cleon80 28d ago

It's like "samurai" and "conquistador" are technically not ethnicities, but name of the profession does narrow the ethnicity options somewhat.

-6

u/[deleted] 29d ago

[deleted]

3

u/FreddieCaine 28d ago

You might mean Somalia. Ethiopia's been landlocked for about 40 years since Eritrea gained independence

0

u/Dikke_Domkop_8771 29d ago

I wonder howmany people didn’t come forward and just melted or sold it. 

9

u/fiendishrabbit 29d ago edited 29d ago

Pretty much no one in the nordic countries. Melted down Silver (or even gold) isn't worth anything near what you get as a finders fee* from turning in the artifacts and it's nearly impossible to sell the objects as they are without contacts with antiquities smugglers (and unlike some other countries those are rare).

The only people who do that are idiots or what we in Sweden call "Rättshaverister", which is basically a different brand of the kind of people who become sovereign citizens (quarrelous and possibly litigious as well, obsessed with "their rights" and no respect or concern for anyone else. Extremely anti-state). who might do it just to hide the evidence. Those are thankfully rare.

*Finders fee depends on the historical value of the treasure. But a similar treasure to this was found in Sweden last year and the finders got the equivalent of 355k €. The metal value for that horde was somewhere in the vicinity of 15k €.

P.S: For Finland the finders fee is a minimum of the precious metal value +25%. That's the minimum.

16

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '26

[deleted]

7

u/Syndiotactics Sep 17 '26

Yep, the swords have been predominantly coastal finds 

6

u/FingerGungHo Sep 17 '26

More likely that some trader brought the coins northward and buried them there. Maybe a pelt trader?

19

u/Arkeolog Sep 17 '26

I’m not sure one large hoard necessarily signifies a trade hub. That would have to be shown archaeologically.

In Scandinavia, trade hubs are characterized by a high density of loose finds and small hoards, often large numbers of graves and of course some kind of settlement remains. A surprising number of large hoards have been found on marginal land, suggesting that they’ve been buried away from population centers.

14

u/Altruistic-Many9270 Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 18 '26

What? Actually I have been metal detectorist over 15 years and back in those days Sysmä definitely wasn't any wilderness what comes to population. Not to mention many other places around.

For example the biggest hill fortress in northern Europe is located in Rapola, Valkeakoski and it has been huge. It has good water ways to for example Sysmä. Btw there was about 300 known smaller fortresses around southern Finland.

So that discovery rewrites nothing. The problem in Finland is that Museovirasto has declared so many historic places protected without any excavations that most of the history isn't found yet. I'm very much pro protections but when Museovirasto is very poorly funded everything just stays in the ground.

There is just one excavation group in whole institute after they put down the other some years ago because of savings. Even developing countries invest more in their cultural history and I envy for example Baltics where every little town have their own museums with great findings. I mentioned Rapola before and even the fortress area has just 2% of it investigated. And the area is full of dog shit and trash.

One good example was when I found the whole new burial site near Vanajavesi. I found a perfect very rare fetterlocks key with rod chains and there was several signals around. I left them over there because I thought that museum wants to make better excavations. It was allmost ten years ago but nothing has happened and nothing propably will ever happen.

6

u/NoPainMoreGain Sep 17 '26

I didn't know the situation in Finland was that grim.

3

u/Spirited-Ad-9746 29d ago

the place where this were found is surrounded by plaques noting historical gravesites and finds, I'm quite sure it has been known for quite some time that sysmä has been a trade hub.

15

u/jordanwiththefade Sep 17 '26

I imagine Lance & Andy having a toast reading this.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Waboritafan 13d ago

I’m glad he reported it and turned it in. Does he get anything?