[HN Gopher] Denmark's Archaeology Experiment Is Paying Off in Go...
___________________________________________________________________
Denmark's Archaeology Experiment Is Paying Off in Gold and
Knowledge
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 198 points
Date : 2025-06-18 12:13 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| wslh wrote:
| https://archive.is/ra5se
| countrymile wrote:
| For anyone who hasn't seen the detectorists, it gives a very
| British perspective on this sort of work, and is one of the best
| British comedies of the last ten years:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detectorists
| atombender wrote:
| Agreed, it's fantastic. It's not just a brilliant and warm
| comedy, it's also apparently a really accurate and well-
| researched depiction of the metal detecting world.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| The British perspective on this is really the Portable
| Antquities Scheme at https://finds.org.uk/ which has been
| running for over 20 years.
|
| You'll find details of research papers and the Staffordshire
| Hoard, probably one of the largest collections of Anglo-Saxon
| metalwork ever found
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staffordshire_Hoard
| louky wrote:
| So does Time Team, and they're back making new episodes.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtpbubYLW2fdf9ySyCS0f...
| Nursie wrote:
| Really? Amazing.
|
| I loved time team back in the day and I've just started
| rewatching some of them (one of the streaming services has
| series 13-17 here in Aus).
|
| Might not be the same without Tony, but I see he did pop in
| for a cameo...
| wswope wrote:
| I think you'll be pleasantly surprised: There was an
| awkward transition post-Tony, but the new hosts have
| finally hit their stride.
|
| Natalie/Gus/Hilde are far more serene presences than Tony,
| but they let the rest of the cast shine through. Helen and
| Derek in particular are the standout presenters right now,
| and while they don't have the same manic/ADHD vibe, they're
| both passionate and curious in a way that reflects Tony's
| style and keeps the narrative intriguing.
| jvm___ wrote:
| Detectorist was the perfect "the world is a normal place" show
| during the early days of the pandemic.
| jl6 wrote:
| This show is a great example of how good TV comes from good
| writing, not high budget.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Succession had both and it was damn near perfect
| ggm-at-algebras wrote:
| Absolutely the best fictional story of the genre. Lovingly
| made, with nuance and some sadness: Diana Rigg, real life
| mother of Rachael Stirling, (who was cast as her daughter in
| this series) died during its later series, reflected in plots.
|
| The theme music by Johnny Flynn and Dan Michaelson is perfect.
| ascorbic wrote:
| Mackenzie Crook also made (and stars in) Worzel Gummidge, which
| despite being a kids' show about a talking scarecrow, feels
| like very much a partner of the Detectorists and is just as
| lovely. Toby Jones appearing as every member of the bonfire
| committee is a particular treat.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Impressed that people turned in "1.5 kilograms of Viking Age gold
| artifacts".
|
| That gold is worth about $160k!
|
| If I ran the program I would pay at least the metal value to
| anyone turning artifacts in. To remove the temptation that
| doubtless keeps some finds away from the science.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Once properly documented, I have some skepticism that it's
| really necessary to hold every historical artifact found,
| inside some museum archive basically never to be seen again.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| It isn't, but it's impossible to know what will be useful for
| research again in the future, so historical researchers make
| an effort to preserve what they can and avoid excavating if
| possible.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| You can probably do a detailed 3d scan and retain 95% of the
| scientific value.
| heikkilevanto wrote:
| No, at some point they want to analyze the impurities in
| the gold, or the isotopes, or something else we don't know
| yet...
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Sure, that can be done together with the scanning.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| It can't, because we don't know what yet unknown
| questions we might want to ask in the future or what yet
| uninvented technology might come to exist. Add a limited
| budget and storage space and it becomes clear why the
| preference is often not to excavate but instead to
| restrict public access to the site and leave things in
| the ground.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| We can measure impurities and isotopes extremely well,
| which is what the post I responded to mentioned. This is
| very mature technology.
|
| You're right that we don't know what new branches of
| science might be developed that could produce new
| insights from old artifacts.
|
| But remember the situation. My idea makes it possible to
| record and analyze ancient finds that currently just
| disappear. It only gets us 99% of what we want, but in
| the current system we get 0%.
|
| https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Nirv
| ana...
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| The isotopes were just an arbitrary example. The
| important bit was at the end "or something else we don't
| know yet". Granted I'd guess that's fairly unlikely for
| coins specifically.
|
| > currently just disappear
|
| They don't though. The preferences are as other comments
| have described - to stash the artifacts away in storage
| or to leave them in the ground for excavation in the
| future.
|
| Whether or not the laws and common practices are fair to
| the people who discover the items is a separate matter.
| rectang wrote:
| Thank goodness you weren't in charge of the Herculanum
| scrolls.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| We can produce 3D scans of the gold, do mass
| spectroscopy.
|
| Do you feel that vikings somehow embedded secrets in
| their coin?
|
| Scrolls have writing on, if we can't yet read them we'd
| know that there was something else to discover (known
| unknowns) and clearly wouldn't dispose of them.
|
| Of course the Vikings might have embedded secret
| extraterrestrial technologies in their coins, but I'd
| take the bet that they haven't.
|
| The downthread comment about leaving things in the ground
| is right though -- it was, and is imo, the right thing to
| do.
| delusional wrote:
| I'm pretty sure more than 5% of the scientific value is in
| the actual physical material. You can't examine the physics
| of the thing from a 3d scan.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| What else should be done with the artifacts? And also why
| not? It's like storing your data. If you can keep it
| relatively inexpensive, why not keep it around just in case
| some future need or curiosity makes it worthwhile?
| colechristensen wrote:
| If I find something without particular significance that's
| not a part of an archaeological site, say a Roman coin in a
| field somewhere, it's fine if there's a requirement that a
| museum gets to take records and do any sort of scans it
| wants. But unless it was some item of particular cultural
| heritage or research interest, the museum should give it
| back to me or buy it from me or give me something in return
| like a fair tax break.
|
| Lots and lots of stuff gets cataloged and archived and
| basically never looked at again resulting in little
| archeological value or any other public value and is kind
| of just scientific hoarding.
| neaden wrote:
| I mean roman coins for example are so plentiful that they
| are sold relatively cheaply, we have more then enough of
| them for all the museums of the world if they wanted them.
| I don't think viking era treasure is anywhere close to as
| common but there comes a point where it's plentiful enough.
| ambentzen wrote:
| How would law abiding citizen Joe Random from Nowhere even know
| where to offload that on the black market?
|
| It's a bit like internet piracy, make it easy and convenient to
| follow the law and most people will do it.
| thrance wrote:
| You'd be surprised of how easy it is for "Joe Random from
| Nowhere" to sell their illegaly sourced priceless artefacts.
| See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_Treasure
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Can't say I've tried, but I think it's pretty easy to find
| buyers for gold.
|
| Melting it removes the legal risk.
| dwattttt wrote:
| Melting it removes _a_ legal risk. I'm sure if someone
| looks they can find a risk or two still there somewhere.
| protocolture wrote:
| >How would law abiding citizen Joe Random from Nowhere even
| know where to offload that on the black market?
|
| Considering the state of copper theft, the large number of
| videos on facebook and youtube describing how to melt metals
| into bar stock, and the low cost of the tools I dont know why
| this would be considered specialist knowledge.
|
| Maybe if they needed aqua regia or something.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| This comment reminds me of discussion when weed gets
| legalized in the states.
|
| There's always people going, "psh, this won't make weed any
| more accessible, it's already so easy to get, anybody can
| do it!"
|
| And yet, nevertheless, inevitably there are people who try
| it only because it's now legal and openly sold in stores. A
| lot of people simply don't want to do things they consider
| shady, no matter how easy it is. Maybe it being legalized
| doesn't make it any more accessible to _you_ , but you
| aren't everyone.
| protocolture wrote:
| I see where you are coming from but not quite.
|
| What I am saying is that the process is already legal and
| available, so the process isn't a barrier to melting and
| selling the gold. I don't take a position on whether
| someone would simply not do it because its illegal.
|
| The process of growing and selling weed was illegal, and
| thus also a barrier to accessing weed.
|
| If anything your line of reasoning makes me want to
| legalise and protect melting gold you find and selling
| it.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| It isn't that easy. Anyone paying money for a homemade bar
| will test it first. The ancient gold will be very impure by
| bullion standards. The fact that it was horde gold will be
| found out very quickly.
| protocolture wrote:
| >Anyone paying money for a homemade bar will test it
| first.
|
| There's a pretty lively market in gold on ebay. Often
| forged into bars or coins by end users.
|
| I have personally dealt with retail gold buyers who
| legally clear gold of all sorts with little question.
| They pay based on purity and likely have a price for
| whatever purity the horde gold is smelted at.
|
| There's also that Singapore Gold Port at the Singapore
| Airport. Even if they wont touch you directly, there are
| IIRC, in person trades in the airport which can then be
| deposited straight into storage.
| kefal wrote:
| It's Denmark, of course they will turn it in.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| Crime and theft happen in Denmark as in other countries. But
| finders get compensated for the metal value so unless they
| are collectors or have contacts to private collectors, there
| is not a lot to gain.
|
| I know a guy who found a gold treasure on a field and he was
| contacted by a private collector after appearing in local
| news (he turned them down). So who knows how often it
| happens? But I don't think finds are common enough that
| detecting and selling can be a lucrative business. It is
| usually enthusiasts with an interst in history.
| euroderf wrote:
| Wasn't it Copenhagen where the biker gangs had RPGs ?
| asjo wrote:
| It was indeed - one was fired against a club house, in
| 1996: https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Poulsen
| simonask wrote:
| It's enthusiasts - hobbyists willing to invest in metal
| detection gear, spending their free time doing this. If their
| aim was to get wealthy, they would be doing basically
| anything else.
|
| Digging for gold artifacts and treasure is not a great
| strategy to become rich - these people are obviously much
| more interested in the history, and maybe the recognition. Of
| course they will turn it in.
| fudgybiscuits wrote:
| Whether that's good or not really does depend on how much gold
| was found though, could be that 10kg was kept for all we know!
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| >could be that 10kg was kept for all we know!
|
| Doubtful. Finding such a hoard and reporting it to the
| authorities for formal examination by default means showing
| where you found it so the site itself can be examined by
| archaeologists. They'd likely be able to tell if you'd found
| more than you reported in the cache site. It's like
| forensics, but for ancient artefacts and ruins, pretty
| sophisticated at times.
| tokai wrote:
| The budget to pay for these finds is regularly exceeded
| already. Paying the gold price would fleece the National
| Museum.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Understood. But it's also true that you get what you pay for.
| tokai wrote:
| In this case it bought the most productive amateur
| archeology community in Europe :)
| jopsen wrote:
| Getting a cut is probably better.
|
| Spending gold you can't document the origin of is most
| decidedly going to be a hassle. Certainly not without risk.
| And you probably don't have money laundering connections.
|
| And you'll sleep better at night.
| olalonde wrote:
| If I understand correctly, they were paid $150k for it.
|
| > Aagaard, Dreioe and their friend the late Poul Norgaard
| Pedersen discovered nearly 1.5 kilograms of Viking Age gold
| artifacts near the modern town of Faested, including armbands
| that archaeologists have interpreted as oath bands [...]
| Aagaard, Dreioe and Norgaard received just over a million
| kroner for the oath ring treasure, the equivalent of about
| $150,000.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| So they already have a system like I suggested!
|
| I'm glad to hear it!
|
| Less glad that I missed this fact reading the article :)
| bazoom42 wrote:
| You do get compensation for the metal value.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Ginnerup dug up 14 glittering gold disks--some as big as
| saucers--that archaeologists say were buried about 1,500 years
| ago
|
| > the real showstopper is an amulet called a bracteate with two
| stylized designs: a man in profile, his long hair pulled back in
| a braid, and a horse in full gallop. An expert in ancient runes
| says she was awestruck when she finally made out the inscription
| on top: "He is Odin's man."
|
| > These embossed runes are the oldest known written mention of
| Odin, the Norse god of war and ruler of Valhalla. Ginnerup's
| bracteate, which archaeologists describe as the most significant
| Danish find in centuries, extended the worship of Odin back 150
| years
|
| I don't think this is right. The first mention of Odin by a
| Germanic source could date to 500 AD. But the Romans wrote about
| the Germanic gods several centuries prior to that. They used the
| equivalence we still use today, calling Odin "Mercury". But what
| they say about the Germanic gods is compatible with what we know
| from Germanic sources; there's no reason to believe there was a
| change in the gods.
|
| I note that the image on the bracteate features a pretty
| prominent swastika. Maybe Hitler was accidentally on to something
| after all.
| tokai wrote:
| It's the oldest mention of Odin in Denmark. The sciam
| journalist lost that detail somewhere. That is why the find
| pushed worship of Odin in Denmark back 150 years.
| eesmith wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin#Roman_era_to_Migration_Pe...
| says "The earliest clear reference to Odin by name is found on
| a C-bracteate discovered in Denmark in 2020."
|
| So, "written mention of Odin" seems to mean written as "Odin',
| and not as "Mercury".
|
| It also mentions some debate over if the Goths actually
| worshiped Odin/Mercury, but I am too ill-informed to make sense
| if that's relevant.
|
| I did manage to find a scholarly reference to the topic at
| https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/api/core/bitstreams/c11e69e...
| ("Pre-print papers of THE 18TH INTERNATIONAL SAGA CONFERENCE
| SAGAS AND THE CIRCUM-BALTIC ARENA. Helsinki and Tallinn,
| 7th-14th August 2022")
|
| > The problem of Mercury
|
| > Despite lack of Germanic evidence for the existence of a cult
| of Wodan/Odinn before the fifth (or perhaps even the sixth)
| century, as presented above, many scholars maintain ancient
| roots. For example, disregarding critical scholarship on
| various individual sources, Schjodt reiterated that "taken
| together, they strongly indicate that Odinn, although not
| exactly the same as the god that we know from the Nordic
| sources, has roots reaching far back in time, probably as early
| as the Indo-European era (at least 3000 BC)" (Schjodt 2019:
| 67). ...
|
| > The reading of interpretation romana maintains that Tacitus'
| famous description of Germanic deities, Deorum maxime Mercurium
| colunt, should be understood to signify Wodan/Odinn. Of course,
| it has already been shown by Karl Helm that this was a
| historical trope copied from Herodotus, and/or Caesar's
| Commentarii de bello gallico (Helm 1946: 7-12). The fact that
| Caesar was talking about Celts, and his description of religion
| among the Germani mentions worship of the sun, moon, and fire,
| does nothing to secure the reliability of such 'historical'
| sources. Either way, the argument that the foremost deity
| interpreted by Tacitus as a 'Mercury-type' must be Wodan/Odinn
| is a projection of the latter's supremacy in Old Norse material
| onto a Germanic society several centuries older. This becomes a
| circular argument and cannot be leading.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Tacitus isn't the only interpretation of the Germanic gods.
| He is thought to refer to Thor as Hercules, but there are
| other references where a Jupiter is mentioned. There is a
| Roman complaint that the Germanic peoples see Mercury as the
| father of Jupiter when it should be the other way around.
|
| And while it's possible, it would be extremely surprising for
| Odin to be a new addition to the Germanic pantheon when we
| find him attested under that name in the 5th/6th century.
| He's in charge of the whole thing! The norm is for gods - all
| gods - to have very deep roots. Where we can prove that a god
| is novel, we can also often show that it's a borrowing of a
| foreign god with deeper roots (e.g. Adonis < Tammuz) or that
| it is an explicit deification of a human (e.g. if you go to
| the temple of the city god in Shanghai, there's an
| informative plaque explaining that the city god was
| posthumously appointed to the position by an emperor of the
| Yuan dynasty).
|
| I do understand that after cassava or maize was introduced
| somewhere in Africa, anthropologists documented a new goddess
| associated with the crop. Innovation exists. But pantheons
| are very conservative overall. "Several centuries" is not an
| amount of time where we expect to see pantheonic turnover.
| eesmith wrote:
| Were all gods worshiped?
|
| By my limited understanding, the question isn't if Odin was
| part of the pantheon, but rather if there was a specific
| cult of Odin.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I don't understand your question. All gods are worshiped
| by definition.
|
| "The cult of Odin" would refer to anything and everything
| related to Odin. See sense 1 here:
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cult , or sense 3/4 here:
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cult .
| eesmith wrote:
| I am a software developer with little knowledge of the
| topic.
|
| What do we call a personified supernatural being who is
| not worshiped? Are there really no such entities?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God informs me: "In
| polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being
| believed to have created, or for controlling some part of
| the universe or life, for which such a deity is often
| worshipped". The "often" tells me that a god is not
| always worshipped.
|
| How should I make sense of this line from https://en.wiki
| pedia.org/wiki/Odin#Roman_era_to_Migration_Pe... : "There
| is no direct, undisputed evidence for the worship of
| Odin/Mercury among the Goths, and the existence of a cult
| of Odin among them is debated."
|
| Definition 1 starts 'The veneration, devotion and
| religious rites given to a deity'. What veneration,
| devotion, and religious rites are attested?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > How should I make sense of this line from https://en.wi
| kipedia.org/wiki/Odin#Roman_era_to_Migration_Pe... :
| "There is no direct, undisputed evidence for the worship
| of Odin/Mercury among the Goths, and the existence of a
| cult of Odin among them is debated."
|
| You should read "the worship of Odin" and "the existence
| of a cult of Odin" as meaning the same thing. The
| sentence wouldn't mean anything different if it said
| "there is no direct, undisputed evidence for a cult of
| Odin/Mercury among the Goths, and its existence among
| them is debated", or "there is no direct, undisputed
| evidence for the worship of Odin/Mercury among the Goths,
| and it is debated whether he was part of their pantheon".
|
| > Definition 1 starts 'The veneration, devotion and
| religious rites given to a deity'.
|
| There are two concepts here:
|
| 1. Belief that a god or spirit exists.
|
| 2. Rituals intended to communicate with, maintain good
| relations with, propitiate, or placate a god or spirit.
|
| "Worship", "veneration", and "devotion" all refer to both
| of those concepts. "Religious rites" refer to the second
| one.
|
| (Compare https://www.merriam-
| webster.com/dictionary/worship : "to honor or show
| reverence for as a divine being or supernatural power".)
|
| So a reference to belief in a deity is an attestation of
| "worship", "veneration", and "devotion". For rites,
| Tacitus mentions that Mercury receives animal and human
| sacrifices while other deities only get animals.
|
| > What do we call a personified supernatural being who is
| not worshiped? Are there really no such entities?
|
| In the ordinary sense, obviously not, because
| acknowledging that something is a supernatural entity is
| worshiping it. But even in the sense of particular
| rituals, there are no such entities. All supernatural
| beings receive prayers some of the time.
| vintermann wrote:
| > He's in charge of the whole thing!
|
| But he may not always have been. In most European
| mythologies, the thunder god is the most "in charge". In
| Norse mythology, the thunder god is the son of the chief
| god instead. My assumption is that Thor was the main god
| until they syncretistically tried to incorporate new
| beliefs about "the father and the son" and self-sacrifice
| on a tree, which even by this super-early mention of Odin,
| was over 500 years old.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > In most European mythologies, the thunder god is the
| most "in charge".
|
| Most? It's true of the Greeks. It's true of the Romans
| after their mythology is unified with the Greeks, and
| there's a good chance it was also true before.
|
| But that's it, as far as I see. It's not true of Celtic
| mythology and Slavic mythology is barely known.
| vintermann wrote:
| Slavic mythology isn't that unknown. We know that a
| thunder god (Perun) was on top of it. In Finnish
| mythology, it's pretty clear Ilmarinen (a sky/weather
| God) is on top of it. Though it has a specific thunder
| god (Ukko), they seem to think he came later and took
| over thunder from the sky god.
|
| Celtic mythology doesn't have a sky god on top, it's
| true. But it has the same issue as Norse mythology: in
| the form we know it, it's much younger (and probably
| influenced by) Christianity.
| jltsiren wrote:
| Very little about Finnish mythology is clear. Pretty much
| everything known about it was written down centuries
| after Christianity had become established in Finland. And
| the same applies to other Finnic and Uralic peoples as
| well.
|
| In some sense, talking about gods in Finnish mythology is
| a mistake. The entities now understood as gods were not
| the same kind of big important guys as Indo-European
| gods. Finnish mythology was more focused on spirits, most
| of which had narrow and/or local domains. "Gods" were
| more like spirits with wider domains.
|
| Then there is the confusion around names Ilmarinen, Ukko,
| and Jumala, which possibly referred to approximately two
| entities in total. And to make the matters worse,
| "Jumala" and "jumala" in modern Finnish translate as
| "God" and "god".
|
| Or that could just be what people remembered centuries
| after the pre-Christian Finnish society was gone. Very
| little about that society is known. The traditional
| treatment of Finnish history is mostly based on
| archaeological evidence until the semi-mythical Swedish
| Crusades.
| Amezarak wrote:
| Given the meaning of Jupiter and the extreme importance
| of Jupiter even in the time of the Roman kings, I think
| there's much more than a "good chance."
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Jupiter
| never_inline wrote:
| > "taken together, they strongly indicate that Odinn,
| although not exactly the same as the god that we know from
| the Nordic sources, has roots reaching far back in time,
| probably as early as the Indo-European era
|
| A reader might be interested in Kris Creshaw's "The One-eyed
| god" which reiterates Odin's similarities with other Indo-
| european analogues, specifically Apollo and Vedic Rudra.
|
| Indeed, much of the Odin's acts and characteristics find
| similarities in the deeds of Rudra or Indra in Vedic myth.
| The Vedics even had a conception of afterlife similar to
| Valhalla, where the most excellent people and fallen warriors
| reach Indra's realm, carried by Apsaras.
|
| Indra is also god of sacred verse, "vipratamo kavinam", which
| is similar to odin mastering the runes, giving a dual priest-
| king and warrior king function.
|
| The efficacy of "several great deeds" is emphasized for both.
| Eg: The Havamal: "140. word following word, I found me words,
| deed following deed, I wrought deeds.". The Rig Veda
| (1.101.4) - Praised, he is firm at every deed of his.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Indra is also god of sacred verse, "vipratamo kavinam",
| which is similar to odin mastering the runes
|
| That seems pretty tenuous; at the time Indo-Iranian
| diverged from the European branch, runes didn't exist at
| all, and most likely the proto-Indo-Europeans had no
| writing of any variety.
|
| For example, different families' words for writing:
|
| - _write_ [English], from PIE * _wrey_ ;
|
| - _scribere_ [Latin], from PIE * _(s)kreybk_ ;
|
| - _graphein_ [Greek], from PIE * _gerbk_ ; (cognate with
| English _carve_ )
|
| - _likhati_ [Sanskrit], from PIE * _reyk(w)h2_ ;
|
| - _neveshtan_ [Persian], from PIE * _peyk_ (cognate with
| English _paint_ )
|
| [all taken from wiktionary]
|
| This doesn't look like a concept that was around before the
| groups diverged.
| ethan_smith wrote:
| Roman accounts using interpretatio romana (equating Germanic
| deities with Roman gods) aren't the same as direct written
| evidence naming "Odin" specifically. The bracteate's
| significance is that it contains the actual name in runic form,
| not a Roman interpretation or equivalent.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Sure, but claiming that it pushes back the date of Odin's
| worship back 150 years is wrong. It hasn't made any change to
| our beliefs about when Odin was worshiped, or where, or by
| whom.
| tokai wrote:
| >It hasn't made any change to our beliefs about when Odin
| was worshiped, or where, or by whom.
|
| Why state this so strongly over something that was
| misconstrued?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Huh?
| HK-NC wrote:
| I'm not sure who decided that Hitler stole the swastika from
| the Hindus, but it's false. The symbol appeared in the
| decorations of his childhood church IIRC and wasn't an alien
| symbol to germans elsewhere.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Where do you think he got the term "Aryan" from?
| Reasoning wrote:
| From contemporary ethnologists who used the term to refer
| to the proto-indo-europeans? Because the term aryan is
| common amongst the languages descended from the proto-indo-
| european language (Arya, Iran, Alans, Arios)?
|
| Nazi philosophy grew out of 19th century ethnology which
| was heavily influenced by Darwinism. They believed the
| proto-indo-european ("Aryan") homeland was in northern
| Europe and that the spread of "Aryan" language was do to
| "Aryan" immigration to those regions and that in ancient
| times those regions were led by an "Aryan" "master race"
| who ruled over the "lesser races" do to their natural
| superior genes developed through generations of natural
| selection in the harsh northern climate.
|
| To be clear, I believe that is all BS but I wrote all that
| to clarify that the Nazis didn't steal the term Aryan from
| the Hindu, it's a term used by the Indo-Iranians to self-
| designate which was erroneously misattributed to the proto-
| indo-europeans by early European ethnologists.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| So Hitler was jealous of the fact that the Romance
| speakers had history and the Germanic speakers didn't.
| And he solved that problem by appropriating the history
| of India and claiming it was also the history of the
| Germans. He used Indian symbols and Indian words.
|
| But that doesn't mean that he took them _from India_?
| That 's crazy. What else would you say he did? That they
| were from India _was the point._ Without their Indian
| identity, they would have failed to serve his purpose of
| giving a history to the Germans.
| versteegen wrote:
| You are missing Reasoning's point (although I think
| you're right about the Nazis needing to create or
| appropriate some other people's heritage). 'Aryan' was a
| linguistic term previously mistakenly used to mean Proto-
| Indo-European. Hitler didn't personally invent Nazi
| master-race ideology and look to India, it's a small
| pseudo-intellectual extension of (European) 19th/early
| 20th century ethnology and eugenics, and that's a very
| important distinction to make, to understand how the Nazi
| came to believe what they did through a product of many
| often-plausible steps and all-too-common character flaws,
| not through one man.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > You are missing Reasoning's point
|
| Note that the comment here is from HK-NC:
|
| >>> I'm not sure who decided that Hitler stole the
| swastika from the Hindus, but it's false. The symbol
| appeared in the decorations of his childhood church IIRC
| and wasn't an alien symbol to germans elsewhere.
|
| You're saying I shouldn't be reading this as a claim that
| the Nazi swastika was an indigenous development,
| unrelated to the Indian symbol despite the fact that it
| symbolized an official ideology naming the Indians as a
| sister tribe to the Germans and adopting the tribal name
| of the Indians for the Germans, and the fact that it was
| referred to by its Sanskrit name?
|
| > Hitler didn't personally invent Nazi master-race
| ideology and look to India
|
| Why is this relevant? He is the one who adopted the
| ideology on behalf of the German state.
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| "The swastika design next to the man's head predates the adoption
| of this symbol by the Nazis."
|
| 1,500 years ago!
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| This saddens me that this had to be written.
| Reasoning wrote:
| Did it have to be written? Who's the hypothetical person who
| is confused that a 1,500 year old gold disk is older than the
| Nazi era.
| necovek wrote:
| Nobody is confused about that, but people are confused
| about whether the swastika represents something similar to
| Nazi ideology before the Nazis appropriated it.
| roger_ wrote:
| Do the detectorists get a certificate or something for their
| honesty?
| tokai wrote:
| They get a payment and they get to be a part of the
| archaeological process. I have a colleague that had a
| significant find recently. Her and her "crew" did the dig,
| cleaning, initial description and cataloguing, and surveyed the
| area around the site. With supervision from professional
| archaeologists. Without this system they would get to handover
| any finds to the landowner.
| biophysboy wrote:
| Denmark has a fantastic maritime museum right by the Kronborg
| castle with hundreds of model ships, wreckage artifacts and high-
| quality underwater photos. Would recommend visiting on a
| Copenhagen trip
| trhway wrote:
| how about hanging metal detector from a drone or just plain
| autonomous RC car. I think once such massive de-mining starts in
| Ukraine, the tech would trickle down into archaeology and the
| like fields.
| flemhans wrote:
| Mount the equipment on the plows that anyway traverse the
| fields
| CrazyStat wrote:
| Most farmers would probably not want to stop plowing to check
| out whatever the detector pings on.
| flemhans wrote:
| Using a decentralized mesh network, the units could publish
| findings in a blockchain for treasure hunters to
| asynchronously react on.
| comrade1234 wrote:
| I live in Switzerland and I know an ancient forest where I go
| every year and pull out about 20kg of chanterelle and 10kg of
| toten trumpeten. These mushrooms come back every year,
| potentially for thousands of years.
|
| One year I found a big piece of a clay cooking pan in the area
| where the chanterelles grow.
|
| There are also tons of ravines, potential caves but I won't know
| until I climb down the ravines, but about 20 km away there are
| tourist caves where you can pay to enter them, part of the same
| ridge system.
|
| I wanted to see if I could use a metal detector to find treasure,
| like in the article but it's illegal here. I suppose I could go
| in at night with the equipment but it's probably not worth it
| since while the Roman's were very active in Switzerland they
| weren't in this very specific region.
|
| But still, where did the clay cooking pan come from?
| mhb wrote:
| Why is a metal detector illegal?
| timonoko wrote:
| Or rather "what constitutes a metal detector"? I could have
| such double-resonating circuitry in my shoe connected to
| earplug via bluetooth.
|
| "Officer, this equipment is for detecting needles in the
| Geneva playground".
| throw101010 wrote:
| Ever heard of the principle of "good faith" in the context
| of the Swiss law (Article 2 of the Civil Code)?
|
| Sometimes I think it was a prescient concept of our law
| makers and judiciary, many decades ago they knew they would
| have to deal with this kind of reddit-tier smartassery...
| if you have a device to detect metal, and you use it to
| detect metal, it is a metal detector, no judge will give
| you a pass because you thought you were _very clever_.
| timonoko wrote:
| You can surgically insert tiny piece of magnet in your
| big toe. It is crazy good metal detector.
| nl wrote:
| As someone who worked on metal detectors I assure you
| this isn't true.
|
| Actual metal detectors can detect gold a meter down
| through mineralized soil with metal scrap in between.
| timonoko wrote:
| Wasnt there somebody who did it with his finger? Results
| were so amazing that almost wanted to do the same. Except
| then you have to be very careful around powerful magnets.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| complicated murder horror plot involving luring fellow
| into area with powerful magnets unbeknownst to them.
| raverbashing wrote:
| > Ever heard of the principle of "good faith" in the
| context of the Swiss law (Article 2 of the Civil Code)?
|
| This is HN, most discussions around laws fail to consider
| the legal context and practices, especially as it relates
| to (in general) Europe
|
| Instead, people here think you can "Bazinga" the law to a
| judge and that GDPR enforcement will drone them if their
| website don't have a popup.
| pjc50 wrote:
| To stop amateurs finding antiquities.
| fnordian_slip wrote:
| Top stop people destroying the context, as laypeople can't
| (or won't even know about the need to) properly document the
| layers and non-metal finds around the metal. This makes
| dating a lot harder, and often destroys 90% of the scientific
| value of the find.
| mycatisblack wrote:
| One of the projects I intend to make some day is a metal
| detector with 2 pickup coils(*), one in or around the sole of
| each shoe. Instead of an auditory signal, a vibrating element
| strapped to my leg or ankle. That way you can metaldetect
| difficult terrain/non-stop/inconspicuously.
|
| (*) they each work independently, like two metaldetectors. Not
| the detector type with an RX and TX coil.
| is_true wrote:
| Can't you say you lost a ring or something?
|
| Just cover holes properly. Please. With love, my ankles.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Does the law say it's permitted if you lost a ring? That
| would be a useless law - everyone would be losing rings.
| erk__ wrote:
| There is also a version of Danefae for non-human made things
| called Danekrae
|
| https://samlinger.snm.ku.dk/en/danekrae/
|
| There is a lot less specimens in that collection as it only
| includes specimens that are deemed important in some ways, right
| now there are 1054.
|
| They can be viewed online here:
| https://collections.snm.ku.dk/en/search?dataset=5b5305ae-35d...
|
| (edit: That online collection only seem to contain biological
| specimen, meteors and geological specimens are not included as
| far as I can tell)
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