GESSEL HOARD UNCOVERED
It takes months to free the Gessel
Hoard’s 117 artifacts from the dirt
that tightly packed them: a fibula
adorned with sun symbols, a brace-
let, a wendelring-type torque, and
numerous coils of varying sizes,
curiously joined to form chains of
ten links each. The precious find
from the NEL site near Bremen –
four pounds of gold all told – could
be dated to the 14th century BC,
the Middle Bronze Age.