Amateur archaeologists Hans Henrik Hansen and his nephew Christian Albertsen were exploring a field near the Danish village of Boeslunde, southwestern Zealand, with metal detectors this June 18th when they discovered two bracelet-sized gold rings. They immediately brought the rings to the Zealand Museum where curator Kirsten Christensen recognized them as “oath rings,” arm rings that are open-ended with decorated funnel-shaped tips. Hansen and Albertsen told her they were off to find more of them and returned to the field the next day where they found another two rings within meters of the first two. They are from the Late Bronze Age and date to around 800 B.C...
The four rings are all different, although they do share some decorative features like meander patterns, snaking bend patterns like a river seen from above. Those meander patterns are a stylistic feature of Late Bronze Age (950-800 B.C.) metal work, which is how the rings were dated. The rings all show significant wear, especially on the tips were some of the decoration has been almost entirely eroded away, which means they were not made solely for sacrifice in a religious ritual...
From
Science Nordic (where there are additional closeup photos and a map of the Zealand region), via
The History Blog
TIL there's a a place called Zealand.
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