Elaborately decorated container made ​​of gold and silver crosses and glass containers: In the southwest of Scotland a pensioner has discovered a Viking treasure.

A simple metal detector and a little local knowledge handed a pensioner to come across a Viking treasure. In südschottischen Dumfriesshire Derek McLennan took over a hundred gold and silver artifacts of seafaring people. According to experts, it is the largest and most important site of Viking traces in Scotland since the 19th century.

The discovered already in September 2014 pieces are more than a thousand years old. Among them is a massive silver cross, which may date from the 9th or 10th century. Moreover, McLennan was a silver pot Western European origin, who was probably a hundred years old when he disappeared into the earth.

Also among the finds is a rare cup of silver with animal ornaments that experts date to the time of the Holy Roman Empire, and a gold pin on which a bird is to be seen. The entire treasure could be worth a six figure sum, reports the BBC.

Viking Treasure in Scotland:Internationally important sites

The reference had previously been identified by experts as a potential location. What is the value of there verborgenden treasure, but no one suspected. The importance of the discovery goes beyond its size and the material value, says Stuart Campbell of the National Museum of Scotland, which houses the finds. The artifacts are of international importance, because the materials of very different places came.

“There is jewelry from Ireland and Scandinavia, glass in Central Europe and a great vessel of the Carolingian that has yet to be fully uncovered,” says Campbell. The Carolingian rule are a family of the West Germanic Franks, whose most famous representative was Charlemagne. The vessel, which comes from them, one of the largest known of its kind.

Viking Treasure in Scotland:Traces the cultural development in Europe

The originating from Scandinavia Vikings fell between the 8th and 11th centuries always an in contemporary Britain. Valuable souvenir from home or from other places they buried so she could find no one. Today repeatedly encounter treasure hunters on these legacies.

“There are great finds, even if they are rare,” says Campbell. The range of materials used was amazing. “The artifacts tell us a lot about our past, the cultural development and our national history.”

In 2007, about a Viking hoard was discovered in the 10th century in northern England. But the importance of a great discovery of 1840 these discoveries does not come close: Then 8600 pieces in northwestern England had been promoted from the earth.

For McLennan was the second major discovery in Scotland in 2013 had the pensioners excavated together with a friend about 300 medieval coins in the same area in which he has now made ​​the Viking treasure find.