Danish Metal Detectorist Stumbles Upon 1,500-Year-Old Gold Treasures

A novice treasure hunter using his metal detector for the first time recently stumbled upon one of the largest, richest and most beautiful hoards of gold artifacts in Danish history.

Ole Ginnerup Schytz was looking for a place to try out his new metal detector, so he asked an old classmate if he could explore his property in Vindelev. Within a few hours, Schytz had literally struck gold — although he initially believed the crunched up, muddied metal he pulled from the ground was "the lid on a can of sour herring."

The lucky metal detectorist continued to strike gold at the site, netting 22 pieces dating back 1,500 years to pre-Viking times. The hoard weighed a total of 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds).

The site was subsequently excavated by archaeologists from Vejlemuseerne, in collaboration with experts from the Danish National Museum. The project was funded by Denmark's Agency for Culture and Palaces.

Archaeologists determined that the treasure was buried in a longhouse that was likely owned by an Iron Age chieftain.

"Only a member of the absolute cream of society would have been able to collect a treasure like the one found here," explained Mads Ravn, Head of Research at Vejlemuseerne.

The Vindelev Hoard consists of saucer-sized, beautifully decorated medallions, also known as bracteates. The recovery also included Roman coins that had been made into jewelry.

The burial of the gold may have been connected to a climate disaster that struck in the year 536 AD. Ash clouds from a large volcanic eruption resulted in many years of crop failure and famine.

According to many researchers, the catastrophe of 536 AD caused the inhabitants of what is now Denmark to reject the old rulers and bury lots of gold during this period — perhaps to to save it from enemies, or possibly to appease the gods.

In less than four months, the Vindelev Hoard will be presented to the public as part of Vejlemuseerne's large Viking exhibition, which opens on February 3, 2022.

Credits: Top two images courtesy of Vejle Museums. Bottom two images courtesy of Conservation Center Vejle.

Retiree Finds 4.38-Carat Yellow Diamond at Arkansas Park Within 1 Hour of Searching

It took retiree Noreen Wredberg less than one hour to score the largest diamond of the year at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas.

The Granite Bay, CA, native spotted the 4.38-carat yellow diamond sitting on top of the ground in a plowed field that is actually the eroded surface of an extinct, diamond-bearing volcanic pipe. It is also the only public diamond mine where novice prospectors get to keep what they find.

She and her husband, Michael, had been touring Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas when they realized that the Crater of Diamonds State Park was only 60 miles away on US Route 70.

“I first saw the park featured on a TV show several years ago,” Noreen said. “When I realized we weren’t too far away, I knew we had to come!”

The couple arrived at Crater of Diamonds on Thursday, September 23, a sunny, but cool, fall morning. They started to search in a shaded area near the mine entrance, but her husband suggested they venture farther out to the middle of the field where it was sunnier and warmer.

His suggestion paid off about 40 minutes later when Noreen noticed the sparkling gem while walking just north of a central pathway of the search area.

“I didn’t know it was a diamond then," she said, "but it was clean and shiny, so I picked it up!”

The Wredbergs had timed their visit perfectly because it had rained heavily two days earlier.

“We plow the search area periodically to loosen the soil and promote natural erosion," said Park Interpreter Waymon Cox. "Diamonds are somewhat heavy for their size and lack static electricity, so dirt doesn’t stick to them. When rain uncovers a larger diamond and the sun comes out, its reflective surface is often easy to see.”

Michael brought his wife's find to the park’s Diamond Discovery Center for identification. After examining the stone, park staff informed Michael that he was in possession of a very large yellow diamond.

Park Superintendent Caleb Howell said, “When I first saw this diamond under the microscope, I thought, ‘Wow, what a beautiful shape and color!’ Mrs. Wredberg’s diamond weighs more than four carats and is about the size of a jellybean, with a pear shape and a lemonade yellow color.”

Noreen was surprised and excited when park staff gave her the news a few minutes later, saying, “We really didn’t think we would find one, let alone something that big!”

The Californians named their gem "Lucy's Diamond" in honor of their kitten, which is mostly grey in color with slight hints of yellow.

Noreen has yet to decide if the gem will stay in its natural state or be made into a faceted diamond.

“I don’t even know what it’s worth yet," she said. "It’s all new to me!”

As of this publication, 258 diamonds have been registered at Crater of Diamonds State Park in 2021, weighing more than 46 carats in total. Visitors have found more than 33,000 diamonds since the Crater of Diamonds opened as an Arkansas State Park in 1972.

Credits: Images courtesy of Arkansas State Parks.

Music Friday: Giant-Sized Emerald Stars in Eddy Grant’s 1984 Hit, ‘Romancing the Stone’

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you awesome songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today we feature Eddy Grant’s 1984 hit, “Romancing the Stone,” which he wrote as the title song of what would become the international blockbuster movie starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and a giant-sized emerald that ends up in the belly of a crocodile.

Grant sings, “I have found a love so precious, like an emerald so bold / It’s a firelight escaping from the jeweler’s hold.”

Although the song reached #26 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Chart, an apparent dispute between the music artist and the movie’s producers left nearly all of the title song on the cutting room floor and completely off the soundtrack album. Only a remnant of the song — a guitar solo — can be heard in the scene where Douglas and Turner's characters, Jack and Joan, enter Juan's house in the jungle.

In this action-adventure romantic comedy that grossed more than $115 million worldwide, all the main characters are in pursuit of “El Corazon,” a huge faceted emerald. ("El Corazon" in Spanish translates to "The Heart" in English.)

In the final scene of the movie, Jack is wearing boots made from crocodile skin as he lounges on his new yacht. He jokes that the crocodile that swallowed "El Corazon" got a "fatal case of indigestion."

Grant’s original video for the song featured scenes from the film. Later, the video was re-edited with no Romancing the Stone clips.

Grant eventually included “Romancing the Stone” as the first track of his 1984 album Going for Broke. The artist is best known for his 1983 hit, “Electric Avenue,” which reached #2 on the U.S. Billboard Top 100 chart.

Born in Guyana in 1948, Edmond Montague Grant was inspired to pursue a music career after seeing a live performance of rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry.

The international success of the singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist earned him a Lifetime Achievement Award from the government of Guyana along with a 2005 postage stamp featuring his likeness.

Check out the original music video of Grant performing "Romancing the Stone." The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along…

“Romancing the Stone”
Written and performed by Eddy Grant.

I’m romancing the stone, never leaving your poor heart alone
Every night and every day gonna love the hurtin’ away
I’m romancing the stone, never leaving your poor heart alone
Every night and every day gonna love the hurtin’ away

Tonight, tonight I’m falling where the peaceful waters flow
Where the unicorn’s the last one at the water hole
I have found a love so precious, like an emerald so bold
It’s a firelight escaping from the jeweler’s hold

I’m romancing the stone, never leaving your poor heart alone
Every night and every day gonna love the hurtin’ away
I’m romancing the stone, never leaving your poor heart alone
Every night and every day gonna love the hurtin’ away

Oh and in the heat of rapture when I feel the cold winds blow
Through the broken glass, I’ll see at last the sweet desire in you
I will climb up on my pulpit and I’ll preach a sermon, you
On the mountain roads, in Harlem, feel my jeweler’s hold

I’m romancing the stone, never leaving your poor heart alone
Every night and every day gonna love the hurtin’ away
I’m romancing the stone, never leaving your poor heart alone
Every night and every day gonna love the hurtin’ away

Credit: Screen capture via YouTube.com.

Paralympic Medalist Swimmer Sophia Herzog Has Another Reason to Celebrate

Hot on the heels of her bronze medal performance at Tokyo's Paralympic Games, swimmer Sophia Herzog turned to Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to announce her engagement to Para-cyclist boyfriend Nick Gibb.

The 24-year-old athlete posted two photos that prominently displayed her engagement ring, which features a round, brilliant-cut diamond set with four prongs upon a diamond-accented band.

Her caption simply read, "We got some exciting news to announce from this weekend… We are ENGAGED." Of course, she punctuated the post with an engagement ring emoji.

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Living by the credo "Tiny but mighty," the 4-foot-tall swimmer competed in the S6 classification.

Her third-place finish in the 100-meter breaststroke earned the Colorado native her second Paralympic medal. She also captured a silver medal in the same event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Ironically, Herzog told her fans on Facebook this past Friday that the biggest 10 days of her life have come and gone and that the transition back to "normalcy" is happening.

Little did she know that the weekend would deliver another life-changing event.

Standing 6 foot 1, the 39-year-old Gibb is a former Para-cycling national champion in the MC5 class. The Colorado native also represented the U.S. at the 2018 Track World Championships in Rio.

According to TeamUSA.org, Herzog announced that her second Games would be her last. She will be pursuing a career that aligns with her degree in business communication.

“In addition, I hope to bring a level of kindness to the world,” Herzog told TeamUSA.org in May. “As a minority in the U.S., I am usually the first to be squeezed out of opportunities. It can be hard at times, but kindness always wins. Plus, the world always needs more kindness.”

Credits: Images via twitter.com / SophiaHerzog.

150,000-Year-Old Jewelry Represents Earliest Form of Widespread Human Communication

An international team of archaeologists believe the 33 shell beads recovered from a cave in western Morocco represent the earliest known evidence of a widespread form of nonverbal communication among humans.

Measuring about a half-inch across and drilled to be hung on a necklace, the beads made from sea snail shells have been dated at 142,000 to 150,000 years old.

"We don't know what they meant, but they're clearly symbolic objects that were deployed in a way that other people could see them," said Steven L. Kuhn, a professor of anthropology in the University of Arizona College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

The professor believes the beads were part of the way people expressed their identity with their clothing.

"They're the tip of the iceberg for that kind of human trait," he added. "They show that it was present even hundreds of thousands of years ago, and that humans were interested in communicating to bigger groups of people than their immediate friends and family."

Kuhn and an international team of archaeologists recovered the 33 beads from the Bizmoune Cave between 2014 and 2018. Their findings were detailed this past Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

Kuhn co-directs archaeological research at the cave with Abdeljalil Bouzouggar, a professor at the National Institute of Archaeological Sciences and Heritage in Rabat, Morocco, and Phillipe Fernandez, from the University Aix-Marseille in France, who are also authors on the study.

El Mehdi Sehasseh, a graduate student at the National Institute of Archaeological Sciences and Heritage, who did the detailed study of the beads, is the study's lead author.

The archaeologists noted that other, similar beads have been found at sites in northern and southern Africa, but previous samples date back to no older than 130,000 years.

The beads found in western Morocco are linked to the Aterian people of the Middle Stone Age. They were known for their distinctive stemmed spear points, with which they hunted gazelles, wildebeest, warthogs and rhinoceros, among other animals.

The scientists believe the beads may have served as a lasting form of communication, unlike the practice of painting their bodies or faces with charcoal or ochre. One theory involves how the Aterian people may have reacted to a growing population. As more people began occupying North Africa, they may have needed new ways to identify themselves with jewelry.

"It's one thing to know that people were capable of making [the shell jewelry]," Kuhn said, "but then the question becomes, 'OK, what stimulated them to do it?'"

Credits: Dig site image courtesy of Steven L. Kuhn. Shells image courtesy of Abdeljalil Bouzouggar. Steven L. Kuhn image / Supplied.