A hobbyist archaeologist, equipped with a metal detector, unearthed a minuscule scrap of gold foil depicting a male and a female figure in Rogaland, a county in southwestern Norway. Experts have recognized the object as a “gullgubbe,” the term used in Scandinavian lore for “gold figures,” which are small ritual effigies dating to the pre-Viking period.
Kidane Fanta Gebremariam / Arkeologisk museum, UIS
This marks the first discovery of its kind in Rogaland in over 120 years. Globally, approximately 3,600 gullgubber are known to science, but the vast majority originate from Denmark; mere scores—around fifty—have surfaced in Norway. Dating analysis suggests the figure, measuring about one centimeter in length, was fabricated sometime between 550 CE and the start of the Viking Age in 793 CE.
Typically, artifacts of this nature are recovered from significant administrative structures throughout Scandinavia. Sigmund Ørja, a Professor of Archaeology at the University of Stavanger, posits that these gullgubber were offered as sacrifices within the great halls that functioned as centers of power during their era.
It is noteworthy that in 1897, close to the present site of this find—specifically in Hauge-i-Klepp—a collection of sixteen such figurines was discovered simultaneously. They were subsequently deposited in the Bergen Museum, as Stavanger did not yet possess its own museum at that time. Now, with an established museum in Stavanger, this new artifact is destined for that very institution.
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