Since 2019, the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) has been conducting excavations in Bispevika, Oslo.
While numerous ancient artifacts have been unearthed during these excavations, one recent discovery stands out as particularly rare.
The area, previously unexplored by archaeologists, yielded a from the Middle Ages, according to a translated report from Science Norway published August 12, 2024.
The city of Oslo was founded by King Harald Hardraade around 1050, according to Britannica.
In 1624, a Many of Oslo’s buildings were constructed from wood, making them susceptible to fire.
Almost the entire city was consumed by flames. King Christian IV of Denmark and Norway decided to rebuild the destroyed city across the fjord, where it was closer to Akershus Fortress and offered greater protection, according to the Oslo Museum website. The city was named Christiania, and later renamed Oslo in 1925, according to Britannica.
There’s an air of mystery surrounding this rare object, dating back to the early 14th century and designed to safeguard the hand and wrist during combat.
“The gauntlet would never have been left lying in the streets of medieval Oslo,” said Håvard Hegdal, an archaeologist at NIKU and the excavation’s project manager, according to Science Norway.
“This is an exceptionally valuable object. An ordinary person would never own something like this. The only way you can find things like this is if they’re buried or lost in some way. On the seabed, no one could have gotten hold of it,” he continued.
The precise explanation for how the gauntlet ended up in its discovery location remains unknown and unlikely to ever be determined.
However, Hegdal expressed his skepticism about someone losing their
“If there had been anything else related to the gauntlet, we would’ve already found it. It’s an archaeologist’s dream to find remains of some of the battles that took place out there in the fjord, but we haven’t. So, the best explanation we have so far is simply that someone lost it. You could call that bad luck,” he stated.
Despite the gauntlet’s altered structure, the imprint it left behind was sufficient for Hegdal to identify the object.
Many documents pertaining to Oslo were reduced to ashes in the 1700s, making it more challenging to piece together the complete story behind the find.
“Numerous Norwegian medieval documents were burned in Copenhagen during the 1700s. The city law for Oslo is not preserved,” Hegdal mentioned. “We haven’t even found any regulations or documentation indicating that items were thrown into the sea. We only have all the weapons we’ve found out there,” he added, according to Science Norway.
Excavations in Oslo have yielded various other ancient objects, including a collection of weapons, such as daggers, swords, and axes.