While reexcavating a Viking burial mound in southwestern Norway, archaeologists from the University of Bergen came across a surprise: a message left more than a century ago by Anders Lorange, one of the country’s first professional archaeologists. In 1874, on a farm called Myklebust, 170 miles north of Bergen, Lorange uncovered the burned remains of a Viking ship containing metal shield bosses and a massive cauldron.
Lorange didn’t do much to document the dig, and researchers recently returned to see whether he had left anything unexcavated. To their surprise, the team found a 150-year-old message in a bottle buried in the center of the mound. It included a letter addressed to future archaeologists and Lorange’s business card. Above the bottle were more than 600 nails Lorange had recovered from the ship, which had apparently been too heavy to take back to Bergen. “It was like he left a gift for us,” says University of Bergen archaeologist Morten Ramstad.
Archaeologists also found the name of Lorange’s sweetheart, Emma Gade, spelled out in Viking runes at the end of the letter in the bottle. Based on the date when Lorange moved to Bergen and took up his position at the museum there, the young couple couldn’t have been dating for long—a few months at most. Anders and Emma were married shortly after he finished his work at the farm. “If it was a sort of spell,” says Ramstad, “it worked.”
