Largest Viking Age treasure discovered in Finland

In Finland, a man with a metal detector found the country's largest Viking Age treasure. Yle News reports this.

On September 3, metal detecting enthusiast Kalle Lappinen discovered 4.5 kilograms of silver in Sysmä, Päijät-Häme region. The next day, the find was examined by archaeologist Esko Tikkala. According to the expert, this is the largest known collection of late Iron Age coins ever found in Finland. The silver objects, weighing a total of about 4.5 kilograms, were packed in two birch bark containers, buried at a depth of less than half a meter between stones, at a distance of about 12 meters from each other. The exact number of coins and their age will be determined after cleaning and further research.

Lappinen himself admitted that at first he did not believe his luck. He noted that 99 percent of metal detector signals turn out to be trash or ore deposits. The previous Finnish record for the weight of a Viking Age treasure belonged to a find from Nousiainen - just over two kilograms with approximately 1.7 thousand coins.