He said it was the largest such find in Britain since the 1840 discovery of the Cuerdale Hoard -- a mass of 8,500 silver coins, chains, and amulets.
David Whelan, 60, and his 35-year-old son, Andrew, were trawling through a farmer's field near Harrogate, in northern England, on Jan. 6 when their metal detector squealed. The pair began digging, finding a silver bowl more than a foot beneath the soil. Under British law, such finds must be reported to authorities.
The pair turned the bowl over to archeological experts, who discovered it was packed with coins and jewelry. The bowl, a ninth-century gilt silver container probably seized by Vikings from a monastery, had been used as an improvised treasure chest before being buried.
"We thought it was marvelous," David Whelan said. "But we didn't know for nearly a month what was in it."
In all, more than 600 coins and dozens of other objects, including a gold armband, silver ingots, and fragments of silver were found in and around the container.
Some of the coins mixed Christian and pagan imagery, shedding light on the beliefs of newly Christianized Vikings, said Gareth Williams, a curator of early medieval coins at the British Museum.
The booty was probably accumulated through a combination of commerce and warfare, Williams said. Its quantity indicated that at least some of it was taken by force, perhaps in raids on northern Europe or Scandinavia, he added.
The items were manufactured as far afield as Afghanistan, Russia, and Scandinavia.
The Viking raids were chronicled as early as the eighth century by Christian monks on the coasts of northern Europe.
The British Museum said the loot was hidden some time after the fall of the Viking Kingdom of Northumbria in 927.
The museum said it hopes to buy some of the hoard from the Whelan family once its value is determined.
