GOLD IN HOKNS. 



241 



Fig. 511. Gold rings used ns money. Real size. 



Among the finest and most 

 valuable objects found in the 

 North were the two superb 

 golden horns discovered at Mo- 

 geltdiider on the peninsula of 

 Jutland, which were once the 

 pride of the great Museum of 

 Northern Antiquities in Copen- 

 hagen. 



They were without equals in Fi - 512 -- Rin g of S^. Real size. 

 any part of the world ; their exterior was made of different 

 bands of gold, with figures in repousse work, fastened to the 

 harder gold of the body of the horn. Both were stolen from 

 the old Danish Museum on the 4th of May, 1802, and the 

 ignorant thief melted them ; thus those two superb specimens 

 were for ever lost to science, and with an unfortunate fatality 

 the cast of each has also been lost ; but luckily the drawings 

 made can be relied on. The thief was captured a year after, 

 and his punishment was not adequate to the crime he had 

 committed. 



The representations given upon them must have had a 

 meaning ; these were symbolical, and were probably very 

 significant and not used for mere ornamentation ; what 

 the figures and symbolical signs meant is impossible for us 

 to tell 



VOL. I. 



Among the most remarkable of the former is the 

 R 



