Spillings Hoard
A part of cache No 2 of the Spillings Hoard in the Gotland Museum
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| Material | Silver, Bronze |
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| Size | 40 kg (88 lb) plus 27 kg (60 lb) plus 20 kg (44 lb) |
| Created | 9th century |
| Period/culture | Viking Age (late Iron Age) |
| Discovered | 16 July 1999 Spillings, Othem, Gotland, Sweden Coordinates: 57°43′18″N 18°46′49″E / 57.7216078350441°N 18.7803522685971°E |
| Discovered by | Jonas Ström and Kenneth Jonsson |
| Present location | Gotland Museum |
| Identification | 52803 |
The Spillings Hoard (Swedish: Spillingsskatten) is the world's largest Viking silver treasure, found on Friday 16 July 1999 in a field at the Spilling farm northwest of Slite, on northern Gotland, Sweden. The silver hoard consisted of two parts with a total weight of 67 kg (148 lb) before conservation and consisted of, among other things, 14,295 coins most of which were Islamic from other countries. A third deposition containing over 20 kg (44 lb) of bronze scrap-metal was also found. The three caches had been hidden under the floorboards of a Viking outhouse sometime during the 9th century.
On Friday 16 July 1999, a team of reporters from the Swedish television TV4 were in the socken of Othem on Gotland to film a cultural feature from Almedalen Week. They chose to do a segment on the problem with looting of archaeological sites with archaeologist Jonas Ström acting as their guide along with Kenneth Jonsson, a professor of numismatics, who happened to be on the island at that time. Spillings farm was selected for the filming since about 150 silver coins and bronze objects had been found there earlier by the landowner Björn Engström.
With filming complete, Ström and Jonsson decided to continue their survey of the field. Twenty minutes after the TV-crew had left, they heard a strong signal from their metal detector, which led them to the smaller of the two silver caches. A couple of hours later and only 3 metres (9.8 ft) from the first find, they received another signal from the detector:
"The display blinked 'overload' and then it turned itself off."
The site was hurriedly cordoned off, back-up crew from the museum was sent for, permission for an archaeological excavation was immediately sought at the County Administrative Board and guards were posted. However, instead of keeping the find a secret, the Gotland Museum decided to go public with the find immediately. During the first weekend, over 2,000 people visited the excavation site.
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Wikipedia