Some 2,000 spirals made of gold have been unearthed in a field in southwestern Zealand, where four gold bracelets and six gold bowls have been found in the past.

The trove of gold spirals may have been used for religious ceremonies during the Bronze Age, when the Danes’ ancestors worshiped the sun.

The spirals date to the Bronze Age, between 900 and 700 B.C.

The golden spirals are each approximately 3cm long and weigh 0.1 grams each. Photo: Flemming Kaul, Vestsjællands Museum.

‘Maybe the spirals were fastened to the threads lining a hat or parasol. Maybe they were woven into hair or embroidered on a ceremonial garb, Flemming Kaul of the Danish National Museum said in a Danish-language press release reported in The Local.

The golden spirals. Photo: Vestsjællands Museum.

The fact is that we do not know, but I am inclined to believe that they were part of a priest-king’s garb or part of some headwear.’

The site has now yielded the most gold jewelry and other artifacts by weight from the northern European Bronze Age.

The golden spirals are each approximately 3cm long and weigh 0.1 grams each. Photo: Vestsjællands Museum

“The sun was one of the holy symbols in the Bronze Age and gold was presumably seen as having some sort of particular magic power.

It is colored like the sun, it shines like the sun, and because gold lasts forever, it was also seen as containing some of the sun’s power,” Kaul said.