When A Woman Bought ‘Worthless’ Secondhand Jewelry Online, She Stumbled Upon A Valuable Treasure

This curious job lot catches Heskestad’s imagination, and she clicks on the “buy now” button. A couple of days later the keenly anticipated parcel arrives. Now she starts the painstaking task of sorting out the chaotic heap of items that cascade out of the packaging, which is actually an old banana box. She notices that there are several rings among the odds and ends, so she sets them to one side.

Examining the rings, there’s one that catches her eye. It looks a little bit like it’s actually gold. But surely that’s nothing more than wishful thinking? You don’t buy a job lot of miscellaneous cheap jewelry on the internet only to find that you’ve scored a genuine gold ring. Or do you? Heskestad decides she should at least check out her suspicion — whatever the ring is, it’s certainly distinctive.

Speaking later to the Norwegian newspaper Bergensavisen about the ring, Heskestad recalled, “It was bright and golden. It looked very special, was roughly made. I reacted to the fact that it was so heavy. It glittered and stood out among the other pieces of jewelry. It looked very special.” She knew that she just had to find out more about this ring.

Initially, the quickest way to do this was to consult her father-in-law. He had some expertise when it came to historical artifacts. But what he told her came as a real shock. For he believed that this ring might actually be a genuine piece from Norway’s Viking era. But Heskestad wouldn’t be convinced until she’d consulted some genuine experts.

That meant getting in touch with local archaeologists at the Vestland County Municipality. In fact, Heskestad did better than simply dropping the authority an email. She got in her car and drove to the offices in the city of Bergen with the ring. One of the archaeologists, Vestland County senior adviser Sigrun Wølstad, was in the office when Heskestad arrived with the ring.

Speaking later to the website Sciencenorway.no about Heskestad’s Bergen trip, Wølstad said, “We’re so impressed with her— the fact that she reacted exactly as you should when you find something you might believe is of historic value.” Wølstad added that this was the first time she’d ever heard of such an item appearing on an online auction site.

Another who was impressed by Heskestad was Vestland County cultural heritage manager Karoline Hareide Breivik. She said, “Here we have a very observant woman, who immediately saw that this could be something very old. She contacted us, and we were able to quickly confirm that this was a genuine gold finger ring from the late Iron Age/Viking Age. The same type of ring has been found in Norway in the past, but they are rare.”

The significance of it showing up on an auction site was clear to Wølstad. As she said, “What this means is that we have no idea where the ring is from. It could be from anywhere.” But although the piece’s origin was a mystery, once the archaeologists got a chance to examine it closely, there was very little doubt as to exactly what it was. 

The momentous news was that Heskestad’s father-in-law had called it right. This was a gold ring, and it did come from the time of the Vikings. It could be roughly 1,000 years old, perhaps even older. Yet the truth was that when Heskestad had bought the collection online, it had been a different piece that had most interested her. Now she only had eyes for the Viking jewelry!

The researchers got to work, putting the ring under the closest of scrutiny. Their conclusion? It was indeed gold, and it was very old — a lot older than a mere 1,000 years. Because of its style, the conclusion was that the ring dated from either the late Scandinavian Iron Age from about 550 A.D. Alternatively it may have come from slightly later in the Viking era, from about 700 A.D.

Heskestad hadn’t been wrong when she called the ring “heavy”. This relatively small piece of jewelry weighed in at more than a third of an ounce. Wølstad said, “It’s a large ring that a man wore. One of the guys at the museum put it on his thumb.” So we’re talking about a major piece of Viking bling here. 

Viking jewelry is certainly not something that turns up every day. And the mystery of its provenance may never be solved. Wølstad’s staff contacted the man who’d sold the ring online. He said he’d bought it in an antique shop somewhere in Norway. But it could equally have come from one of the other Scandinavian nations with a Viking past, perhaps Denmark or Sweden.

Melanie Wrigglesworth, the collections manager at the University Museum of Bergen, which currently holds the ring, told Bergensavisen, “I did a few searches in national databases, and there aren’t exactly heaps of such rings out there. They are rare.” Wølstad emphasized the importance of this find, saying, “This is unique.” 

Wølstad also explained how the researchers had been able to identify the item as being of Viking provenance. “You can see it in the design and style of the ring,” she pointed out. “Prehistoric gold often has a slightly different color than today. Corresponding and similar rings have been found, and from the context we have managed to date it.”

While conceding that there could be no certainty, Wølstad speculated about exactly how the ring might have surfaced. She said, “Corresponding rings indicate that it probably originates from a grave, has been lost or hidden. This type of ring has been found in large parts of Norway and Scandinavia. It might as well be from Sweden.” 

Another who spoke to the Sciencenorway.no website was Unn Pedersen. She’s an associate professor of archaeology at the University of Oslo and is an expert in Viking history with a specialization in studying metalwork in materials such as silver, copper — and gold. “This is a really exciting find,” Dr. Pedersen said. “It is extremely rare to find such a gold ring from the Scandinavian Viking Age.”

Talking about the characteristics of the ring, Dr. Pedersen continued, “We have some very close parallels to it. There are some in silver, and some in gold that have this exact same shape.” She added that the ring showed signs of having been extensively worn and that it had likely belonged to someone of high stature in Viking society, perhaps a chieftain. 

Dr. Pedersen pointed out, “Gold was rare during the Viking Age, there wasn’t a big supply of it anymore. So this would have been reserved for the richest and most powerful people in society. What we see is that hierarchies are established using artifacts. Often the same items would be made, using different metals.” 

“This also applies to the ring in question as we know of examples of the same ring in silver,” Dr. Pedersen explained. “So you have two people wearing the same ring, but one is silver, the other is gold. It’s clear who is the wealthiest of the two,” she says. So for the Vikings, such jewelry could be a way of establishing social status.

Dr. Pedersen went on to talk about the circumstances of the ring’s discovery and identification. She said the way it had emerged “has been the case throughout the history of archaeology. Somebody finds something — and that’s why it’s so important that they get in touch with the right people, so an archaeologist can come and examine the place where something was found.”

Sadly, as we’ve seen, the way this ring had finally come to the attention of academics — after its sale in an old cardboard banana box to Heskestad — meant we’ll likely never know its full story. Currently its provenance can only be traced back to the summer of 2021 when the dealer who sold it to Heskestad had bought it in a job lot. 

Dr. Pedersen had more to say about the ring in an interview with the Ancient Origins website. “Gold was a valuable and expensive material in the Viking Age, used actively to symbolize power, to gain power over others, and to establish hierarchies,” she said. “Finger rings are for example found in the Hoen hoard, a Viking Age treasure with numerous items of gold.” 

“Therefore, I find it likely that it was used by someone in the elite, possibly one of the many chiefs of smaller territories,” Dr. Pedersen continued. “It is extremely rare to find such a gold ring from the Scandinavian Viking Age. Based on the information provided by the local archaeologists this particular ring is of a size that would fit a man, but finger rings of gold from the Viking age are actually also found in female graves. 

“And I think that the extremely well-equipped Oseberg ship burial illustrates that females could be chiefs, too,” Dr. Pedersen concluded. You’ll have noticed that the professor mentioned two other important archaeological finds from the Viking era, the Hoen hoard and the Oseberg ship. It’s worth having a look at those two. Let’s start with the Hoen hoard.

The Hoen hoard, a fabulous trove of gold and silver jewelry and coins, was discovered on a Norwegian farm in 1834. It remains the largest find of its kind that Norway has ever seen and included neck and arm rings as well as finger rings. Experts dated the hoard to between 850 to 875 A.D., and it’s now on display at Oslo’s Museum of Cultural History.

Although much less splendid than the Hoen hoard in terms of its content, the Oseberg ship is just as fascinating in what it tells us about the Vikings. In 1903 a man called Oskar Rom expanded his farm by buying land from a neighbor. Included in his new fields was a puzzling mound and Rom decided to explore it. When he did, he quickly understood that he’d found something of great importance.

For this mound had been built over a Viking ship which had been used for a burial. And it wasn’t just any old grave, for the Vikings only interred high-status individuals such as tribal chiefs in their longboats. Once he’d realized what he’d stumbled across, Rom called in the experts, just as Heskestad had. He contacted an archaeologist at the University Museum of National Antiquities in Oslo. 

Excavation revealed a well-preserved Viking ship nearly 18 feet long. Experts spent two decades restoring the longboat, revealing intricate wood carving. But what was truly fascinating was the identity of the two people that had been buried with the ship some 12 centuries ago. They were both women. This was clear evidence that back in Viking times women could be part of the elite, perhaps even chieftains. 

It’s entirely likely that like many Norwegians, Heskestad has Viking blood running through her veins. So with her heritage it seems nothing less than fitting that she should be the one to spot a genuine Viking artifact among a jumbled heap of costume jewelry and trinkets. We have her to thank for discovering this stunning new piece of evidence about Viking culture.