Book Description

A newly discovered material rewrites early Danish Viking history. In 2014 a 11-year-old girl, Maja Sielski, and her younger sister Julia, made a sensational discovery among their deceased grandmother's belongings. They found a small golden plate with a Latin script telling the story of the legendary Viking king Harald Bluetooth. It soon turned out that the golden plate was once placed in the king's tomb and this tomb contained world's largest known golden treasure of Viking-era. A transcript of a previously unknown chronicle, "Gesta Wulinensis ecclesiae pontificum" from the 990s has also been found. The manuscript was written by the king’s own priest Avico, probably in an attempt to canonize the king after his death in year 985. Avico has been in the service of the king since the 950s. His extensive account gives a remarkable and dramatic picture of the Viking age Scandinavia during the 10th century. Here is a story of the struggle for power and the foundation of the future dynasties in Denmark, Sweden and Norway as well as Viking raids in Ireland and England. The account also tells of the founding of the legendary Viking fortress of Jomsborg and the fortress’s powerful mercenaries. The book describes in detail these unique facts, but it also gives an overall picture of the Viking Age era for those who are not familiar with the subject. The Curmsun Disc The Curmsun Disc is a concave gold disc of a weight of 25.23 grams (0.890 oz) and a diameter of 4.5 centimetres (1.8 in). The Danish Viking king Harald Bluetooth and the name of the stronghold of Jomsborg is mentioned in the latin inscription on the disc. The disc was reportedly found as part of a Viking Age hoard discovered in 1841 in the cellar crypt of the ruined chapel at Groß-Weckow village in Pomerania. This location is just east of the bank of the river Dievenow and near the place where the semi-legendary Viking stronghold of Jomsborg stood between the 960's and 1043. According to the author the entrance to the crypt was accidentally discovered by a 12-year-old Heinrich Boldt (actor Ben Affleck's said-to-be maternal great-great grandfather), who was playing with some younger children at a construction site near the ruined chapel.