Like the women buried in the Oseberg ship, the Gausel queen had rich artifacts from the British Isles with her in her grave.

The sword would have been one of the most spectacularly ornamented and heaviest types of swords from the Viking Age. The blade is missing, but the hilt has unique details in gold and silver, and exquisite details not previously known.

Only about 20 such swords have been found in Norway—out of a total of around 3,000 Viking sword finds.

Lavish and complicated décor

The sword is currently under conservation at the Museum of Archaeology at the University of Stavanger. It is still difficult to see the details in the hilt, but the décor includes gilded elements of the typical animal styles found during the Iron and Viking Age, between ca. 550 and 1050.

"It is very exciting to work on a find like this. It is challenging work, but we uncover new details daily," conservator Cora Oschmann, in charge of the conservation, says.

The hilt also contains geometrical figures in silver, made with the so-called niello technique. This means that a metallic mixture of sorts was used to make black stripes in the silver.

Both ends of the crossguard are formed as animal heads.

"The technique is of a very high quality, and both the lavish and complicated decor and the special formation of the crossguard make this a truly unique find," archaeologist Zanette Glørstad from the museum says.