Fake ancient necklace pranks experts in Swedish city
A necklace, declared by state experts as a valuable artefact from 2,000 years ago, was found at a construction site in western Sweden. "I can't sleep at night from excitement," stated one of the antiquarians in an interview with Swedish Radio. The catch is that the valuable find turned out to be... a prank by the workers. It didn't come to light immediately.
In western Sweden, in the city of Trollhättan, workers stumbled upon a necklace initially considered a valuable artefact from 2,000 years ago. Experts from the Västra Götaland region were impressed by the find, which supposedly was made of gold and weighed almost 1 kilogram.
"I can't sleep at night from excitement", - said Niklas Ytterberg, an antiquarian from the Västra Götaland province office, in an interview with Swedish Radio.
The media speculated which museum the ancient jewellery would end up in and what reward the finder would receive. However, after a few days, the office in Västra Götaland released new information, admitting that the necklace was fake. The statement said the technical evaluation revealed that the necklace was mainly made of iron, copper, and zinc.
It was admitted that they relied too early on the preliminary opinion of experts. As explained, the hoop looked similar to previous archaeological finds of this kind in the same region. But that's not the end.
A prank that got out of control
Reporters from Swedish Radio reached the construction workers where the necklace was found. It turned out that the artefact was the subject of a joke among the workers. The issue was that things got out of control, and information about the find quickly spread in the media before the truth came to light.
The workers did not expect their joke to gain such publicity and were afraid of the consequences, which is why they didn't report it earlier. Now, the item is to be returned to the finder, if he decides to accept it.
