A Viking silver hoard from Brokhøj, Gjerrild Klint

The find

Abstract

A Viking Silver Hoard from Brokhøj, Gjerrild Klint

The find

In 1986 Djursland's Museum excavated the remains of a much ploughed down megalithic long-mound at Gjerrild Mark in northern Djursland. The stones of the dolmen and the uprights of the peristalith had nearly all been blown up and removed. Marks in the subsoil surface where the stones had stood made it possible to establish most of the plan of the monument, which had been 18 m long and 8 m wide with 2 stone chambers.

In an extraction hole of the western dolmen lay 10 fragments of coins and rings, all of silver, with close to them a fragment of a pot. This was undoubtedly a Viking silver board, which had presumably been inserted in the ground close to one of the uprights of the chamber and had been disturbed when this had been blown up. After a thorough search through the dump of ploughsoil from over the chamber, the board came up to 81 pieces of silver, of which 66 were coins and 15 fragments of rings and ingots.

Pauline Asingh