Gold torc found in Sweden

A 2,000-year-old gold torc has been discovered in Trollhättan, Sweden. It is composed of a core of metal with gold wire wound tightly around its full length. It has wide knob terminals, also wound with gold wire, and six thick solid gold rings around the necklace at symmetrical intervals.

Torcs are unusual finds in Scandinavia. There are only two similar gold examples known from Sweden. One of them, found in Havorringen, was stolen in 1986 and has never been recovered. The other was part of a hoard discovered in Vittene on the outskirts of Trollhättan in the 1990s. They are more common in Britain, Germany, Ireland and France, but even there ones made of gold are rare.

What makes this artifact even more exceptional is that it was likely manufactured domestically. The gold wire wrapped around a core is a type of craftsmanship that has not been seen in torc finds in other countries. The torc found in Vittene is wrapped with thin gold thread, but it’s not a plain wire; it’s an intricate herringbone pattern. Still, archaeologists believe there was a goldsmithing workshop in the area that produced high-end pieces for the local elite.

The torc was discovered during expansion work at GKN Aerospace’s aero-engine manufacturing facility in Trollhättan. About 2 meters (6.5 feet) under the surface of the mud and sand, the glitter of gold stopped the diggers in their tracks. Archaeologists plan to return to the find site with metal detectors to see if there’s anything else to be found.

(The people who found the Vittene torc while gardening in 1990 thought it was a weird bent curtain rod and kept it as a curiosity for 5 years before someone told them it was actually gold and they reported it to heritage authorities. When archaeologists finally got to explore the find site in 1995, they found another four gold objects, plus silver jewelry, coins and glass beads. It wound up being Sweden’s third largest gold find of all time by weight.)

The necklace will now undergo metallurgic analysis to determine its composition. The mud that still clings to it will also be analyzed in the laboratory to get information about its context when it was deposited 2,000 years ago. Analysis of the encrusted mud should reveal what body of water — a lake, a creek, the Gota River — was at the find site at the time of the deposition.

Once the analyses are completed, the torc will be cleaned, conserved and put on display in a local museum.