A hoard of four Viking Age silver bangles has been unearthed on a mountainside at a farm in Årdal in Hjelmeland municipality, Norway.

Each of them are of a different style and in excellent condition. They were found less than eight inches under the surface so close together that they overlapped each other, so there is no question they have not been disturbed since they were buried in the 9th century.

The silver bangles were found under what was once the floor of a small house. The dwelling is so small and spare that archaeologists believe it probably housed enslaved workers, and there were no other artifacts discovered in the area. The excavation found evidence that the farm was burned down around the time the silver bracelets were buried. The people who lived at the farm may have therefore buried the hoard before they fled an attack, and chosen an unlikely location to deter looters.

According to Odin’s Law, as recorded in the Heimskringa saga, men were allowed to bring with them to Valhalla everything that was burned on the funeral pyre with them and anything they had personally buried in the ground.