Five small gold leaf figurines discovered in a Norwegian temple

Five very small gold leaf figurines have just been discovered at Hov in Norway during excavations in a pagan temple dating from the Merovingian period, a pre-Viking period, located in time between 476 and 750 A.D.

Ingunn Marit Rostad, archaeologist and associate professor at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, made a summary comment on this find of historical interest: “We find this type of figurine, “gullgubber”, in almost all of Scandinavia, but only in Scandinavia. You have the same representations spread throughout the region. They had to mean something, people had to know what they meant, and I think they had to be important to be gilded like that.” Some 3,000 comparable artifacts have already been found in Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

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These figurines, less than 1cm high and the size of a fingernail, could help unlock the secrets of an ancient society. According to the head of the excavations Nicolai Eckhoff, archaeologist at the University of Oslo, these figurines buried or hidden in the posts supporting the structure of the temple, could have a symbolic function comparable to an offering: “They tell us a story about the importance of the area. The site lies next to Mjosa, Norway's largest lake, at the mouth of the Gudbrandsalslagen river. Most commercial goods from the mountainous regions of eastern Norway would certainly have passed through this site before being shipped back to the coast.'

The remains of the Hov temple were unearthed as early as 1993. After the first discoveries of the first two gold figurines, 28 others were found during subsequent excavations. These artifacts mainly depict men, women and animals, according to the Bornholms Museum in Ronne, Denmark. The characters are adorned with jewelry, aristocratic dresses and generally signs of opulence. Finally, other signs suggest symbols relating to Nordic mythology. Scandinavian scientists now promise to make historic revelations in the coming months.