The archaeologist who discovered a medieval gold ring while digging less than three inches beneath the surface of Norway’s oldest town had quite the reaction.

“‘S***, is that gold?’ was my first thought,” archaeologist Linda Asheim said in a translated statement from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research. “I was completely shaken and had to ask the construction guys if they were messing with me. And now I just have to quit being an archaeologist, because now I have reached the top.”

While Asheim isn’t serious about her threat to leave the profession, she’s still astounded by the “out-of-body experience” that led her to finding a dream artifact from the Middle Ages in 2025.

The gold ring is set with a deep-blue oval stone, and the gold itself includes filigree decoration—a technique where thin threads of metal twist, bend, and fuse together to create patterns—while small round balls are also soldered onto the ring.

“It has been 15 years since we last found a gold ring in Tonsberg,” Hanne Ekstrom Jordahl, project manager, said in a statement, “and this one is a fantastically beautiful and rare specimen.”

Because it was found under an archaeological layer that contained a spruce twig dated to 1167-1269, experts firmly believe the ring dates back to sometime between the ninth and 11^th centuries.

Tonsberg is Norway’s oldest city, dating to the ninth century, and is located near the royal castle complex of Tunsberghus, which was created by Scandinavian kings in the 13th century. Stormwater management and drainage work is currently underway in the historic medieval center of Tonsberg, where aging drainpipes are being upgraded to mitigate discharge of raw sewage during flooding events, which are becoming more common in the region. Because this infrastructure work has to be done in Tonberg’s valuable, tourist-friendly medieval heart, archaeologists have preceded the engineers on every dig for the last two seasons.

Marianne Vedeler, professor at the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo, said the ring’s design ties it to the early Middle Ages, particularly its use of spirals at the top. “The combination of filigree and granulation comes to Norway in the early Middle Ages from the Byzantine era, partly via the Carolingian goldsmith’s art,” Vedeler said.

Rings with similar spiral decorations dated to the ninth and early 10^th centuries have appeared in England. Two rings with set stones and granulation found in Denmark were recently dated to the 11^th century.

The ring’s meaning for the owner who left it behind is less clear. In the Middle Ages, people commonly believed gemstones possessed magical properties, and a blue sapphire symbolized divine power and the ability to heal. According to historians, medieval people also thought a gem’s blue color helped the wearer preserve chastity by cooling “inner heat.” However, the gemstone in this recent discovery is actually likely made of glass colored to appear like a sapphire, an attempt to imitate or create the illusion that a real gemstone was set in the ring.

Of course, wearing the ring may have simply been an expression of wealth and status. Its elaborate decorations and valuable gold hint that the ring belonged to someone high up the social ladder. Its relatively small size means it was likely worn by a woman. With royals and clergy living in and visiting the city regularly, the possibilities for ownership and meaning run the gamut.