Man searching carrot field finds ancient gold and bronze jewelry — and multiple teeth
A man with a metal detector searching a freshly plowed carrot field in Switzerland found a large ornate jewelry set dating to the Bronze Age — as well as other surprising items including a bear’s tooth, a beaver’s tooth and a fossilized shark’s tooth, local officials said this week.
Franz Zahn made the unusual discovery in August while he was “out and about in a freshly harvested carrot field” in Güttingen, about 50 miles northeast of Zurich, officials from Thurgau Canton said in a Monday news release. Zahn initially found a bronze disc, and immediately realized it was an “extraordinary discovery” so he contacted local authorities.
A team of experts identified the discovery as a necklace and large jewelry set from the Middle Bronze Age, which dates to about 1500 B.C., officials said. Archaeologists later excavated a block of soil where the discovery was made and found a host of other artifacts — including rings, wire spirals made of gold and more than 100 amber beads.
Experts also made some other “surprising” finds — a bronze arrowhead, a beaver tooth, a bear tooth, a fossilized shark’s tooth, a rock crystal and a small ammonite.
video posted by Thurgau Canton showed the jewelry being restored in a lab.
The unusual find in Switzerland follows other recent discoveries of ancient treasure found by people with metal detectors in Europe.
Ealrier this month, two sets of coins found by metal detectors in Wales turned out to be Roman treasure, officials confirmed.
In September, a Norwegian family looking for a lost earring in their garden instead discovered artifacts dating back more than 1,000 years. Just weeks before that, officials revealed that a man with a metal detector made the “gold find of the century” in Norway.
Stephen Smith
Source: cbsnews.com