An amateur metal detectorist in Denmark has unearthed a rare gold ring that may have belonged to a previously unknown royal family with ties to the Kingdom of France.
Lars Nielsen discovered the large, ornately decorated gold ring, set with a red semiprecious stone, while exploring Emmerlev, a parish in Southern Jutland, Denmark, according to a translated statement. The ring dates to the fifth or sixth century.
"The gold ring not only reveals a possible new princely family in Emmerlev, but also connects the area with one of Europe's largest centers of power in the Iron Age," Kirstine Pommergaard, an archaeologist and curator at the National Museum of Denmark, said in the statement."The gold ring is probably a woman's ring and may have belonged to a prince's daughter who was married to a prince in Emmerlev.
"Perhaps the princely family in Emmerlev had control over an area between Ribe and Hedeby and thus secured trade in the area," Pommergaard said.
"The person who had the ring probably also knew about the people who had the golden horns," Anders Hartvig, a medieval archaeologist at Museum Sønderjylland, said in the statement."Maybe they were related. Together with other recent finds, it paints a picture that Southern Jutland has had a greater influence than previously thought, and that the Wadden Sea was not closed in on itself, but had an aristocratic presence with important trade links to the south.