A couple in northern Norway we working on their floor to install new insulation when they came across something unusual: a Viking axe.
Initially, the couple found a glass bead, and they weren’t sure what they had come across.
“It wasn’t until later that we realised what it could be,” Mariann Kristiansen from Seivåg near Bodø told Norway’s state broadcaster NRK of the find. “We first thought it was the wheel of a toy car.”
So the couple called archaeologists, who confirmed that the artifacts were Viking Age. Archaeologist Martinus Hauglid from the Nordland county government concluded that the couple’s house was actually built on a Viking grave.
“It was found under stones that probably represent a cairn. We found an axe dated from between 950AD and 1050AD and a bead of dark blue glass, also of the late Viking period,” he told The Local.
Kristiansen’s grandfather purchased the house in 1914, but no one in the family knew anything about a Viking grave. In fact, this type of discovery is rare and it’s not clear if the house was knowingly built on top of the grave and knowledge of this was lost, or if no one knew about it in the first place.
The artifacts have already been sent to Tromsø Museum, and a team of archeologists were in the couple’s house on Tuesday digging further. Ultimately, the couple will be able to install the new insulation in their floor — they might even get something for their trouble.
“I never heard of anything like that and I’ve been in business for nearly 30 years,” said Hauglid. “They did a magnificent job, they reported it to use as soon as they got the suspicion that it actually was something old.
“I guess, they will get some reward, that is normal in Norway, that people that find old artifacts get a reward from the state.”
