You'll find details of research papers and the Staffordshire Hoard, probably one of the largest collections of Anglo-Saxon metalwork ever found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staffordshire_Hoard
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtpbubYLW2fdf9ySyCS0f...
I loved time team back in the day and I’ve just started rewatching some of them (one of the streaming services has series 13-17 here in Aus).
Might not be the same without Tony, but I see he did pop in for a cameo…
Natalie/Gus/Hilde are far more serene presences than Tony, but they let the rest of the cast shine through. Helen and Derek in particular are the standout presenters right now, and while they don’t have the same manic/ADHD vibe, they’re both passionate and curious in a way that reflects Tony’s style and keeps the narrative intriguing.
The theme music by Johnny Flynn and Dan Michaelson is perfect.
That gold is worth about $160k!
If I ran the program I would pay at least the metal value to anyone turning artifacts in. To remove the temptation that doubtless keeps some finds away from the science.
You're right that we don't know what new branches of science might be developed that could produce new insights from old artifacts.
But remember the situation. My idea makes it possible to record and analyze ancient finds that currently just disappear. It only gets us 99% of what we want, but in the current system we get 0%.
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Nirvana...
> currently just disappear
They don't though. The preferences are as other comments have described - to stash the artifacts away in storage or to leave them in the ground for excavation in the future.
Whether or not the laws and common practices are fair to the people who discover the items is a separate matter.
Do you feel that vikings somehow embedded secrets in their coin?
Scrolls have writing on, if we can't yet read them we'd know that there was something else to discover (known unknowns) and clearly wouldn't dispose of them.
Of course the Vikings might have embedded secret extraterrestrial technologies in their coins, but I'd take the bet that they haven't.
The downthread comment about leaving things in the ground is right though -- it was, and is imo, the right thing to do.
Lots and lots of stuff gets cataloged and archived and basically never looked at again resulting in little archeological value or any other public value and is kind of just scientific hoarding.
It's a bit like internet piracy, make it easy and convenient to follow the law and most people will do it.
Melting it removes the legal risk.
Considering the state of copper theft, the large number of videos on facebook and youtube describing how to melt metals into bar stock, and the low cost of the tools I dont know why this would be considered specialist knowledge.
Maybe if they needed aqua regia or something.
There's always people going, "psh, this won't make weed any more accessible, it's already so easy to get, anybody can do it!"
And yet, nevertheless, inevitably there are people who try it only because it's now legal and openly sold in stores. A lot of people simply don't want to do things they consider shady, no matter how easy it is. Maybe it being legalized doesn't make it any more accessible to you, but you aren't everyone.
What I am saying is that the process is already legal and available, so the process isn't a barrier to melting and selling the gold. I don't take a position on whether someone would simply not do it because its illegal.
The process of growing and selling weed was illegal, and thus also a barrier to accessing weed.
If anything your line of reasoning makes me want to legalise and protect melting gold you find and selling it.
There's a pretty lively market in gold on ebay. Often forged into bars or coins by end users.
I have personally dealt with retail gold buyers who legally clear gold of all sorts with little question. They pay based on purity and likely have a price for whatever purity the horde gold is smelted at.
There's also that Singapore Gold Port at the Singapore Airport. Even if they wont touch you directly, there are IIRC, in person trades in the airport which can then be deposited straight into storage.
I know a guy who found a gold treasure on a field and he was contacted by a private collector after appearing in local news (he turned them down). So who knows how often it happens? But I don’t think finds are common enough that detecting and selling can be a lucrative business. It is usually enthusiasts with an interst in history.
Digging for gold artifacts and treasure is not a great strategy to become rich - these people are obviously much more interested in the history, and maybe the recognition. Of course they will turn it in.
Doubtful. Finding such a hoard and reporting it to the authorities for formal examination by default means showing where you found it so the site itself can be examined by archaeologists. They'd likely be able to tell if you'd found more than you reported in the cache site. It's like forensics, but for ancient artefacts and ruins, pretty sophisticated at times.
Spending gold you can't document the origin of is most decidedly going to be a hassle. Certainly not without risk. And you probably don't have money laundering connections.
And you'll sleep better at night.
> Aagaard, Dreiøe and their friend the late Poul Nørgaard Pedersen discovered nearly 1.5 kilograms of Viking Age gold artifacts near the modern town of Fæsted, including armbands that archaeologists have interpreted as oath bands [...] Aagaard, Dreiøe and Nørgaard received just over a million kroner for the oath ring treasure, the equivalent of about $150,000.
I'm glad to hear it!
Less glad that I missed this fact reading the article :)
> the real showstopper is an amulet called a bracteate with two stylized designs: a man in profile, his long hair pulled back in a braid, and a horse in full gallop. An expert in ancient runes says she was awestruck when she finally made out the inscription on top: “He is Odin’s man.”
> These embossed runes are the oldest known written mention of Odin, the Norse god of war and ruler of Valhalla. Ginnerup’s bracteate, which archaeologists describe as the most significant Danish find in centuries, extended the worship of Odin back 150 years
I don't think this is right. The first mention of Odin by a Germanic source could date to 500 AD. But the Romans wrote about the Germanic gods several centuries prior to that. They used the equivalence we still use today, calling Odin "Mercury". But what they say about the Germanic gods is compatible with what we know from Germanic sources; there's no reason to believe there was a change in the gods.
I note that the image on the bracteate features a pretty prominent swastika. Maybe Hitler was accidentally on to something after all.
So, "written mention of Odin" seems to mean written as "Odin', and not as "Mercury".
It also mentions some debate over if the Goths actually worshiped Odin/Mercury, but I am too ill-informed to make sense if that's relevant.
I did manage to find a scholarly reference to the topic at https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/api/core/bitstreams/c11e69e... ("Pre-print papers of THE 18TH INTERNATIONAL SAGA CONFERENCE SAGAS AND THE CIRCUM-BALTIC ARENA. Helsinki and Tallinn, 7th–14th August 2022")
> The problem of Mercury
> Despite lack of Germanic evidence for the existence of a cult of Wodan/Óðinn before the fifth (or perhaps even the sixth) century, as presented above, many scholars maintain ancient roots. For example, disregarding critical scholarship on various individual sources, Schjødt reiterated that “taken together, they strongly indicate that Óðinn, although not exactly the same as the god that we know from the Nordic sources, has roots reaching far back in time, probably as early as the Indo-European era (at least 3000 BC)” (Schjødt 2019: 67). ...
> The reading of interpretation romana maintains that Tacitus’ famous description of Germanic deities, Deorum maxime Mercurium colunt, should be understood to signify Wodan/Óðinn. Of course, it has already been shown by Karl Helm that this was a historical trope copied from Herodotus, and/or Caesar’s Commentarii de bello gallico (Helm 1946: 7-12). The fact that Caesar was talking about Celts, and his description of religion among the Germani mentions worship of the sun, moon, and fire, does nothing to secure the reliability of such ‘historical’ sources. Either way, the argument that the foremost deity interpreted by Tacitus as a ‘Mercury-type’ must be Wodan/Óðinn is a projection of the latter’s supremacy in Old Norse material onto a Germanic society several centuries older. This becomes a circular argument and cannot be leading.
And while it's possible, it would be extremely surprising for Odin to be a new addition to the Germanic pantheon when we find him attested under that name in the 5th/6th century. He's in charge of the whole thing! The norm is for gods - all gods - to have very deep roots. Where we can prove that a god is novel, we can also often show that it's a borrowing of a foreign god with deeper roots (e.g. Adonis < Tammuz) or that it is an explicit deification of a human (e.g. if you go to the temple of the city god in Shanghai, there's an informative plaque explaining that the city god was posthumously appointed to the position by an emperor of the Yuan dynasty).
I do understand that after cassava or maize was introduced somewhere in Africa, anthropologists documented a new goddess associated with the crop. Innovation exists. But pantheons are very conservative overall. "Several centuries" is not an amount of time where we expect to see pantheonic turnover.
By my limited understanding, the question isn't if Odin was part of the pantheon, but rather if there was a specific cult of Odin.
"The cult of Odin" would refer to anything and everything related to Odin. See sense 1 here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cult , or sense 3/4 here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cult .
What do we call a personified supernatural being who is not worshiped? Are there really no such entities?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God informs me: "In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the universe or life, for which such a deity is often worshipped". The "often" tells me that a god is not always worshipped.
How should I make sense of this line from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin#Roman_era_to_Migration_Pe... : "There is no direct, undisputed evidence for the worship of Odin/Mercury among the Goths, and the existence of a cult of Odin among them is debated."
Definition 1 starts 'The veneration, devotion and religious rites given to a deity'. What veneration, devotion, and religious rites are attested?
You should read "the worship of Odin" and "the existence of a cult of Odin" as meaning the same thing. The sentence wouldn't mean anything different if it said "there is no direct, undisputed evidence for a cult of Odin/Mercury among the Goths, and its existence among them is debated", or "there is no direct, undisputed evidence for the worship of Odin/Mercury among the Goths, and it is debated whether he was part of their pantheon".
> Definition 1 starts 'The veneration, devotion and religious rites given to a deity'.
There are two concepts here:
1. Belief that a god or spirit exists.
2. Rituals intended to communicate with, maintain good relations with, propitiate, or placate a god or spirit.
"Worship", "veneration", and "devotion" all refer to both of those concepts. "Religious rites" refer to the second one.
(Compare https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/worship : "to honor or show reverence for as a divine being or supernatural power".)
So a reference to belief in a deity is an attestation of "worship", "veneration", and "devotion". For rites, Tacitus mentions that Mercury receives animal and human sacrifices while other deities only get animals.
> What do we call a personified supernatural being who is not worshiped? Are there really no such entities?
In the ordinary sense, obviously not, because acknowledging that something is a supernatural entity is worshiping it. But even in the sense of particular rituals, there are no such entities. All supernatural beings receive prayers some of the time.
Right, but as the text I quoted earlier pointed out: "Of course, it has already been shown by Karl Helm that this was a historical trope copied from Herodotus, and/or Caesar’s Commentarii de bello gallico (Helm 1946: 7-12). The fact that Caesar was talking about Celts, and his description of religion among the Germani mentions worship of the sun, moon, and fire, does nothing to secure the reliability of such ‘historical’ sources. Either way, the argument that the foremost deity interpreted by Tacitus as a ‘Mercury-type’ must be Wodan/Óðinn is a projection of the latter’s supremacy in Old Norse material onto a Germanic society several centuries older. This becomes a circular argument and cannot be leading."
> acknowledging that something is a supernatural entity is worshiping it
I ... really? Christianity has angels, devils, cherubs, the Nephilim, and other supernatural entities who are not worshiped. Who prays to the first and second beasts of Revelation or the Ophanim?
Those are supernatural entities in a (nominally) monotheistic religion.
But really I was thinking more that given all the world's mythologies, I find it hard to believe that all supernatural entities in them are worshiped as gods.
In trying to research this, it seems the main problem is the dearth of information we have about pre-literate German culture. We have views through the eyes of Tacitus and Bede, but these come with unknown biases and misunderstandings.
There is no evidence Loki was ever worshipped.
But he may not always have been. In most European mythologies, the thunder god is the most "in charge". In Norse mythology, the thunder god is the son of the chief god instead. My assumption is that Thor was the main god until they syncretistically tried to incorporate new beliefs about "the father and the son" and self-sacrifice on a tree, which even by this super-early mention of Odin, was over 500 years old.
Most? It's true of the Greeks. It's true of the Romans after their mythology is unified with the Greeks, and there's a good chance it was also true before.
But that's it, as far as I see. It's not true of Celtic mythology and Slavic mythology is barely known.
Celtic mythology doesn't have a sky god on top, it's true. But it has the same issue as Norse mythology: in the form we know it, it's much younger (and probably influenced by) Christianity.
In some sense, talking about gods in Finnish mythology is a mistake. The entities now understood as gods were not the same kind of big important guys as Indo-European gods. Finnish mythology was more focused on spirits, most of which had narrow and/or local domains. "Gods" were more like spirits with wider domains.
Then there is the confusion around names Ilmarinen, Ukko, and Jumala, which possibly referred to approximately two entities in total. And to make the matters worse, "Jumala" and "jumala" in modern Finnish translate as "God" and "god".
Or that could just be what people remembered centuries after the pre-Christian Finnish society was gone. Very little about that society is known. The traditional treatment of Finnish history is mostly based on archaeological evidence until the semi-mythical Swedish Crusades.
A reader might be interested in Kris Creshaw's "The One-eyed god" which reiterates Odin's similarities with other Indo-european analogues, specifically Apollo and Vedic Rudra.
Indeed, much of the Odin's acts and characteristics find similarities in the deeds of Rudra or Indra in Vedic myth. The Vedics even had a conception of afterlife similar to Valhalla, where the most excellent people and fallen warriors reach Indra's realm, carried by Apsaras.
Indra is also god of sacred verse, "vipratamo kavinam", which is similar to odin mastering the runes, giving a dual priest-king and warrior king function.
The efficacy of "several great deeds" is emphasized for both. Eg: The Havāmal: "140. word following word, I found me words, deed following deed, I wrought deeds.". The Rig Veda (1.101.4) - Praised, he is firm at every deed of his.
That seems pretty tenuous; at the time Indo-Iranian diverged from the European branch, runes didn't exist at all, and most likely the proto-Indo-Europeans had no writing of any variety.
For example, different families' words for writing:
- write [English], from PIE *wrey;
- scribere [Latin], from PIE *(s)kreybʰ;
- graphein [Greek], from PIE *gerbʰ; (cognate with English carve)
- likhati [Sanskrit], from PIE *reyk(ʷ)h₂;
- neveshtan [Persian], from PIE *peyḱ (cognate with English paint)
[all taken from wiktionary]
This doesn't look like a concept that was around before the groups diverged.
Why state this so strongly over something that was misconstrued?
Nazi philosophy grew out of 19th century ethnology which was heavily influenced by Darwinism. They believed the proto-indo-european ("Aryan") homeland was in northern Europe and that the spread of "Aryan" language was do to "Aryan" immigration to those regions and that in ancient times those regions were led by an "Aryan" "master race" who ruled over the "lesser races" do to their natural superior genes developed through generations of natural selection in the harsh northern climate.
To be clear, I believe that is all BS but I wrote all that to clarify that the Nazis didn't steal the term Aryan from the Hindu, it's a term used by the Indo-Iranians to self-designate which was erroneously misattributed to the proto-indo-europeans by early European ethnologists.
But that doesn't mean that he took them from India? That's crazy. What else would you say he did? That they were from India was the point. Without their Indian identity, they would have failed to serve his purpose of giving a history to the Germans.
Note that the comment here is from HK-NC:
>>> I'm not sure who decided that Hitler stole the swastika from the Hindus, but it's false. The symbol appeared in the decorations of his childhood church IIRC and wasn't an alien symbol to germans elsewhere.
You're saying I shouldn't be reading this as a claim that the Nazi swastika was an indigenous development, unrelated to the Indian symbol despite the fact that it symbolized an official ideology naming the Indians as a sister tribe to the Germans and adopting the tribal name of the Indians for the Germans, and the fact that it was referred to by its Sanskrit name?
> Hitler didn't personally invent Nazi master-race ideology and look to India
Why is this relevant? He is the one who adopted the ideology on behalf of the German state.
1,500 years ago!
One year I found a big piece of a clay cooking pan in the area where the chanterelles grow.
There are also tons of ravines, potential caves but I won't know until I climb down the ravines, but about 20 km away there are tourist caves where you can pay to enter them, part of the same ridge system.
I wanted to see if I could use a metal detector to find treasure, like in the article but it's illegal here. I suppose I could go in at night with the equipment but it's probably not worth it since while the Roman's were very active in Switzerland they weren't in this very specific region.
But still, where did the clay cooking pan come from?
"Officer, this equipment is for detecting needles in the Geneva playground".
Sometimes I think it was a prescient concept of our law makers and judiciary, many decades ago they knew they would have to deal with this kind of reddit-tier smartassery... if you have a device to detect metal, and you use it to detect metal, it is a metal detector, no judge will give you a pass because you thought you were very clever.
Actual metal detectors can detect gold a meter down through mineralized soil with metal scrap in between.
This is HN, most discussions around laws fail to consider the legal context and practices, especially as it relates to (in general) Europe
Instead, people here think you can "Bazinga" the law to a judge and that GDPR enforcement will drone them if their website don't have a popup.
(*) they each work independently, like two metaldetectors. Not the detector type with an RX and TX coil.
Just cover holes properly. Please. With love, my ankles.
https://samlinger.snm.ku.dk/en/danekrae/
There is a lot less specimens in that collection as it only includes specimens that are deemed important in some ways, right now there are 1054.
They can be viewed online here: https://collections.snm.ku.dk/en/search?dataset=5b5305ae-35d...
(edit: That online collection only seem to contain biological specimen, meteors and geological specimens are not included as far as I can tell)
wslh•5mo ago