Swedish Man Discovers Trove of Bronze Age Treasures Hidden in Plain Sight

In early April, mapmaking enthusiast Tomas Karlsson was exploring a forest outside the small western town of Alingsås, Sweden, when he noticed a gleam of metal on the mossy forest floor. “It looked like … garbage,” Karlsson, who made the find while updating a map for his orienteering club, tells Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, per a translation by Agence France-Presse (AFP). “‘Is that a lamp lying here?’ I thought at first.”

What initially resembled bits of scrap metal turned out to be a small pile of handmade jewelry that appears to have been scraped loose from between two boulders by an animal. Intrigued, reports Mia Pettersson for Swedish newspaper Göteborgs-Posten, Karlsson emailed an archaeologist about the discovery while paused for a coffee break.

Soon after, researchers from the nearby University of Gothenburg revealed the fantastic nature of Karlsson’s accidental find: He had unwittingly happened upon a deposit of about 80 rare Bronze Age artifacts (including 50 wholly intact pieces and 30 fragments) dated to between 750 and 500 B.C. As a local government statement notes, per Google Translate, the extraordinary trove is “very well preserved” and amounts to one of the “most spectacular and largest finds from the Late Bronze Age ever made, not only in western Sweden but in all of Sweden.”

Swedish law requires anyone who discovers antiquities to turn their findings over to the state. The Swedish National Heritage Board will assess the cache’s value—and possibly offer Karlsson a monetary reward.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/swedish-mapmaker-stumbles-trove-bronze-age-treasures-180977644/