A unique silver treasure has been uncovered near Sweden’s Arlanda airport.

On Tuesday, archaeologists from the Swedish National Heritage Board dug up the largest collection of Viking-era silver coins found in the Uppland region north of Stockholm in modern times.

The treasure consists of 450 silver coins and was discovered during an investigation of an Iron Age grave site located beside the Steningehöjden area in Sundveda near Arlanda.

Some of the coins come from Bagdad and Damascus and are thought to be from 500 to 840 AD and appear to have been buried around 850 AD. They were found on the edge of a grave which is believed to be 1000 years older than the treasure.

By Sam Jones - Dispute over sunken ship involves US firm, Spain and Peru, and raises British fears

The crew of Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes must have thought their ship had fought its final battle on the morning of October 5 1804. A little after 10 o’clock, their seven-month voyage from Peru, via Uruguay, to almost within sight of the Iberian peninsula came to an end with the British broadside that sent the treasure-laden frigate and 200 souls to the bottom of the Atlantic and brought Spain into the Napoleonic wars.

But after lying undisturbed on the seabed off Portugal for more than two centuries, the Mercedes is now at the centre of the biggest treasure grab in history.

The battle for ownership of its £254m cargo of gold and silver coins, which has already pitted a US treasure-hunting company against the Spanish government, has been joined by a third party. An emotive campaign is welling up from within Peru to reclaim the treasures the conquistadores and their descendants took by force over the course of almost three centuries.

Last May, the Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration announced that it had recovered 500,000 gold and silver coins weighing 17 tonnes from a wreck in international waters in the Atlantic and flown them back to the US from Gibraltar. Read the full Guardian Story

A treasure-hunter could be in line for a small fortune after unearthing two rare coins that shed light on a little-known rebel Roman emperor.

Derrick Fretwell’s finds, which date back to AD286 and the reign of Carausius, have been hailed “priceless” by experts at the British Museum. Mr Fretwell, 57, was digging in a field near Ashbourne, Derbys, when he uncovered the coins, which are at least 90 per cent gold.

The machinery sales manager said yesterday: “I’ll be intrigued to find out what they are worth, although to me their worth is their rarity value.”

The discovery of these two gold coins sheds light on a little known ‘British’ Emperor.

Gold coins of Carausius are extremely rare, until now only 23 being in existence. The last example found was in 1975 in Hampshire and it is quite possible that we will have to wait for over 30 years before another one sees the light of day. (more…)

WASHINGTON — US treasure hunters who allegedly extracted rich spoils from a sunken wreck in Spanish waters hailed three court rulings Wednesday that protect the secret location of their find.

The legal dispute began in May last year when Odyssey Marine Exploration announced that it had found half a million silver coins and hundreds of gold objects, somewhere in “international waters in the Atlantic Ocean”.

Spain filed claims with a court in Tampa, Florida, arguing that if the shipwreck was Spanish or located in Spanish waters, any treasure would belong to Spain. Odyssey said in a statement that US judge Mark Pizzo had issued three orders “that the company believes will help to expeditiously move these cases forward”.

Two of the rulings were made in reference to a Spanish request to “compel compliance and to declare certain materials as not confidential”, it said.

The judge ruled that although artifact summaries and pictures are not confidential, “in the interest of protecting the site, other information including the preliminary site assessments, the site plans, the photographs of the sea bed and the photomosaics should remain confidential at this time.” Read Full Story

U.S. Federal Judge Holds That Odyssey’s Pleadings Meet Rules of Procedure In Three Shipwreck Cases

TAMPA, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. (Nasdaq:OMEX) today announced that on March 6, 2008, Judge Steven D. Merryday issued an Order relating to Spain’s Motions to Dismiss the Amended Complaints that were filed by Odyssey in the arrest of three wreck sites.

Odyssey is pleased with the ruling of the judge in the cases of the three arrested sites which specifically states that “the allegations in the complaint and the disclosure in connection with discovery satisfy the requirements of applicable procedural rules and pleading principles.”

“This makes it clear that the first phase of these cases is complete and we can get beyond Spain’s invalid arguments that Odyssey has not pled its case adequately. This means we can move forward to determine what basis, if any, Spain has for the claims it has made to these wreck sites,” said Greg Stemm, Odyssey’s Chief Executive Officer.

The Court’s Order makes it clear that if Odyssey promptly complies with the disclosure rulings of the Magistrate Judge in a satisfactory manner, the Company is not required to disclose any hypotheses as to the identities of the vessels. (more…)