Swedish construction workers' prank fools experts with fake ancient necklace
A necklace, declared by state experts to be a valuable artifact 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 artifact 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 2 pounds.
"I can't sleep at night from excitement," said Niklas Ytterberg, an antiquarian from the Västra Götaland provincial office, in an interview with Swedish Radio.
The media speculated about which museum the ancient jewelry 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 explained that 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 artifact 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.
