LONDON, ENGLAND—An eighth or ninth-century gilded Celtic disc has been discovered within a lump of organic material that has been sitting in a storeroom in the British Museum for more than 100 years. Excavated in Norway by a British archaeologist in the late nineteenth century, museum curator Barry Ager thinks the artifact was probably crafted in Ireland or Scotland and then looted by the Vikings from a shrine or a reliquary. Rivet holes and a pin that converted the disc to a brooch were added by the Vikings. The brooch was then perhaps wrapped in textiles and placed in a wooden box before it was buried with a high-status Viking woman. “The Vikings themselves were very skilled metalworkers, so I’m sure that’s something that would appeal to a Viking eye,” Ager said.
