It measures 4.5 centimetres across, weighs a little over 25 grams and names, in Latin letters, a King Harald, son of Gorm. If the Curmsun Disc is genuine, it ranks among the most important witnesses to Viking Age Denmark. Yet it became known only in 2014, from a family's belongings in Malmö, and its alleged discovery at Wiejkowo in Pomerania in 1841 survives only in later accounts. This article separates what can be tested from what is merely asserted: what the disc itself shows, which versions of its history are in circulation, and why most specialists who have spoken up do not trust it.
The disc is slightly dished, convex on one face and concave on the other. Accounts agree on a diameter of 4.5 centimetres and a weight of 25.23 grams. These figures come from the circle of its owners and researchers; I have found no independent publication that rechecks them, but nobody disputes them either.
One face carries the circular inscription, given in the literature as +ARALD CVRMSVN+REX AD TANER+SCON+JVMN+CIV ALDIN+. The other shows a raised octagonal ridge enclosing a Latin cross and four dots. Sven Rosborn, the Swedish archaeologist who brought the disc to public notice, reads the dots as the four Evangelists. Nothing on the disc confirms that, though nothing makes it absurd: crosses with dots do occur on coins.
The name "Curmsun" is modern, coined from the second word of the inscription. English writers speak of the Curmsun Disc, Danish ones also of "Haraldsguldet", the Harald gold. It is not a coin in the strict sense: it is described as cast rather than struck, and even the first report in 2014 called it a plaque.
The usual reading runs: Harald, son of Gorm, king of the Danes, of Scania, of Jumne, town or bishopric of Aldinburg. Every link carries a historical snag, or at least a decision by the translator.
ARALD CVRMSVN. The patronymic Gormsson is spelled with C rather than G. There is a plausible reason: the Younger Futhark does not distinguish k from g. On the great Jelling stone the father really is "kurm", and Denmark is "tanmaurk". Someone transferring runes sign by sign into Latin letters would arrive at CVRM and TANER. Rosborn counts this in favour of an early date. In my view it does not settle the matter, because anyone studying runic inscriptions in the eighteenth or nineteenth century knew the same quirk. A further thought of my own, not taken from the scholarly literature: the Jelling stone writes Harald as "haraltr", with an h, while the disc has ARALD. The sign-by-sign explanation does not cover that. This is no disproof either, since a dropped H does occur in medieval spellings.
REX AD TANER. Latin "ad" means "to" or "at". A royal title would normally call for the genitive, "king of the Danes". The translations I could read pass over this in silence. That is my own observation and no proof of forgery, since Baltic Latin need not follow the schoolbook.
SCON. Scania, now southern Sweden, lay within the Danish sphere at this time. The only surprise is that it is listed separately from the Danes. Harald's own stone at Jelling does not mention it.
JVMN. Many articles print "Jomsborg" here. The disc does not say that. JVMN matches the form Jumne, which Adam of Bremen uses for the Slavic town usually identified with Wolin. Equating Jumne with Jomsborg is a further assumption of its own, and whether that fortress existed, and where, remains open.
CIV ALDIN. This is taken to mean Oldenburg in Holstein, the Slavic Starigard. CIV is expanded as town or as bishopric; accounts differ. A missionary bishopric arose there around 968/972, and its church burned in the Slav uprising of 983. I know of no contemporary source saying Harald ruled Oldenburg. This is my own assessment, not a statement from the literature: the formula is not impossible, but it claims more than the rest of the record supports.
"King Harald had these monuments made for Gorm, his father, and for Thyra, his mother: that Harald who won for himself all Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian."Great Jelling stone (DR 42), c. 965–970, runic inscription; transliteration after Danske Runeindskrifter, my own translation
That sentence is the touchstone. It is beyond dispute, stands at Jelling, and shows how Harald wished to be presented: Denmark, Norway, conversion. It says nothing of Scania, Jumne or Oldenburg. This is no contradiction, as nobody attributes the disc to Harald himself. It does show, as I read it, that the disc's titles have no parallel in the secure material.
Wiejkowo, called Groß Weckow until 1945, is a village some six kilometres southeast of the town of Wolin, on the mainland beyond the Dziwna. Its present church dates from the nineteenth century. According to the Curmsun project around Rosborn, workers digging the foundations in 1841 broke into a medieval cellar. A twelve-year-old boy named Heinrich Boldt is said to have found the entrance while playing. Inside lay coins, gold objects, swords and other items. The pastor, the boy and the other families present shared it out, and part was hidden back in the crypt. Boldt emigrated to America and, the story goes, wrote from New York in 1869 asking about the cache.
It is a good story with one decisive flaw: no contemporary record supports it. There is no find report from 1841, no museum notice, no newspaper item that I or the literature I read can point to. The German Wikipedia article states outright that contemporary sources mention no treasure, and cites the official gazette of the Stettin government for 1843 on the new church of 1842. On that account the church replaced a predecessor that had burned down, whereas the project speaks of a ruined medieval chapel. I could not consult the gazette myself, so this discrepancy needs checking against the original.
The frame of the narrative rests on documents that have vanished. The pastor's journals, said to have mentioned the crypt and to have held Boldt's letter, are not publicly available. By Rosborn's account, which I know here only at second hand, they no longer exist.
How the disc travelled from Pomerania to Malmö is the second gap. The version from Rosborn's circle: in summer 1945 the Polish major Stefan Sielski and his brother Michał recovered what remained of the treasure. On the project website a German pastor and another German act as guides; another version has a craftsman showing them the hiding place. Because the disc did not look like gold, it ended up in a box of buttons.
The earliest report sounds different. In December 2014 the Polish Press Agency PAP, citing a family member, wrote that the plaque reached the family in 1946 on Wolin: a cousin had received it from the local pastor. The husband's grandmother collected buttons and coins. That report says nothing of a crypt, of 1841 or of Wiejkowo. In 2022 the archaeologist Wojciech Filipowiak of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences noted that the accounts from the family and from Rosborn vary with the place of publication: the find lay under the floor, in the crypt, in a cellar or in the alleged grave, and in 1945 the disc reached the family either as payment or by theft.
Such differences do not prove deception. Family memories shift, and stories retold over decades rarely stay exact. What matters for scholarship is the consequence: a findspot that rests on memory and on papers found later is not a secure findspot. The alleged accompanying finds do not help either. Five objects are mentioned, including a silver coin from the reign of Otto I, two pieces of bronze bracelet and a small stamped piece of gold. They come from the same tradition and cannot support it from outside.
In autumn 2014 an eleven-year-old descendant of the Sielski brothers (great-granddaughter of Stefan or of Michał, accounts differ) showed the gold piece to her history teacher in Malmö, who passed it to specialists; the project website says her younger sister had found it first. The first reports came out in December, when Aftonbladet in Sweden quoted Rosborn and PAP picked up the story. Rosborn is no outsider without credentials: he took a doctorate in medieval archaeology, directed the city museum at Malmö Castle and helped found the Foteviken Museum.
According to English Wikipedia, the disc now belongs to an unnamed company, sits in a Swedish bank vault and is insured for 3.5 million US dollars. I could not confirm this independently. As far as I could find it is not on show in any museum, and the reports available give a museum store no part in its history.
Supporters rely on three findings. Electron microscopy at Lund University found an inhomogeneous alloy with 83.3 to 92.8 per cent gold, no modern traces and features consistent with the early Middle Ages. The gemmologist Jonny Westling described natural inclusions and patina in a 2015 appraisal, commissioned, according to supporters, by the Swedish Chamber of Commerce and by underwriters. The project website adds a helium date of 1,030 ± 400 years.
Three things limit how far this goes. First, the range: plus or minus 400 years runs from the end of late antiquity into the late Middle Ages. Even the project website notes that Rosborn's date around 986 is a historical interpretation and does not follow from that figure. I could not see the measurement record. Second, the material: Kurt Villads Jensen, professor of medieval history at Stockholm, told the Danish portal Videnskab.dk that gold cannot be dated precisely and can be remelted at any time. A forgery made from old gold would look chemically unremarkable. Third, the checking itself: Videnskab.dk could not confirm the expert reports Rosborn cites, and Lloyd's, when asked, would not confirm the alleged expert opinion.
None of this refutes the disc. The analyses simply do not establish what they are cited for: they cannot date an inscription to the tenth century.
After 2014 something arrived that sharpened the dispute. In 2021 Rosborn published "Vikingakungens guldskatt", in English "The Viking King's Golden Treasure", with contributions from Tomas Sielski, who according to Videnskab.dk translated the Polish texts into Swedish. At its core is a text called Gesta Wulinensis ecclesiae pontificum (spellings vary), an alleged Latin chronicle whose older part is attributed to Avico, a priest close to Harald, at the end of the tenth century.
The Latin original cannot be traced, as its supporters also concede. What exists is a Polish translation said to have been made in 1963 by Antonina Chmielinska, an ancestor of Tomas Sielski; it reportedly resurfaced in 2019 in a piece of furniture at Koszalin. An unnamed Polish professor of forensic science is said to have confirmed the date, and the medievalist Aleksander Gieysztor is said to have dated a few Latin pages to about 980–1030 in the 1960s. I know both claims only from Rosborn's circle. The text supplies exactly what research lacks: Harald's grave, year dates and the location of Jomsborg near the village of Paprotno. After visiting the site, Rosborn reports matching surface finds. No excavation has taken place.
As of late 2026: Tourist Information Lund, whose pages follow Rosborn's account, states on an undated page that a typewritten copy of the Latin text was also found in autumn 2026, and announces a further book. I have found no independent confirmation. Nor do I know of any peer-reviewed study or edition since 2022, although my search was limited.
Medievalists have met this with the strongest distrust. Anders Winroth, a historian at the University of Oslo, told Videnskab.dk in substance that the excerpts answer precisely the questions no other source settles, and that the presentation calls Umberto Eco to mind rather than research literature. He thinks forgery the likelier explanation.
Kurt Villads Jensen and Wojtek Jezierski reviewed the book in the Swedish journal Fornvännen in 2022 and, according to the accounts available to me, judged both disc and chronicle to be forgeries: the disc has no known analogue and the chronicle contains anachronisms. I could not read the review itself, even during the later check. I know the arguments from Videnskab.dk, from Wikipedia and from Rosborn's rejoinder "Making something out of nothing", so partly from the person being criticised. The scythe and the tribal names I know only from that rejoinder:
Rosborn's strongest counter-argument is foreknowledge. The 1963 translation, he says, names things discovered only later: the ring fort at Borgeby, the cult building at Uppåkra, years matching the later tree-ring dates from Jelling, and the ruler's name "Airde Conut", which appeared only in 2011 on a coin from the Silverdale Hoard. That would carry weight if the 1963 date were secured from outside. Everything hangs on that point: the proof assumes the papers really date from 1963 and that nothing was added later, and third parties would need to be able to test this on the material.
Jes Wienberg, professor of historical archaeology at Lund, reviewed the book in the Danish journal Kuml. I could not read that text either. According to Wikipedia and Videnskab.dk, he criticises the fact that outsiders have no direct access to the finds, so that readers must simply believe the author; either this is a sensation, he says, or we are facing forgeries. Jens Ulriksen of Museum Sydøstdanmark objects that the forts Rosborn names are undocumented and that simple checks were never made. The National Museum of Denmark said it would examine the material once it is presented. Rosborn in turn accuses the museum and the Danish National Archives of refusing to examine it. The museum disputes this, and the archives reply that they do not deal with the Viking Age at all. According to Videnskab.dk, the material has not been peer reviewed.
The picture is less uniform than "fake" or "sensation" would suggest. The Polish numismatist Mateusz Bogucki sees the work of antiquarian enthusiasts of the eighteenth or nineteenth century, which would involve nobody living today. The Danish archivist Steffen Harpsøe, writing in Siden Saxo in 2015, placed it between 1050 and 1125, made by local clergy to promote Harald as a saint, and calls its authenticity unclear. That would make it a genuine medieval piece, but no witness from Harald's time. Karen Schousboe of the Medieval Histories platform saw a possible talisman made after 963 in 2014 and left the question open. In 2021 she recommended Rosborn's book; Wikipedia takes this as a declaration of authenticity, but her article explicitly leaves the veracity of the chronicle fragments open. She considers forgery of the annals unlikely because they differ from the familiar sources, yet advises caution until a full edition exists. In 2022 Filipowiak called the disc, the written source and the find circumstances unreliable.
It also matters what does not count as endorsement. Alison Finlay, author of a book on the Jómsvíkinga saga, made clear to Videnskab.dk that the disc appears only on the cover and that the book does not address its authenticity. Rosborn rejects every accusation of forgery. Nobody has named a forger, and no proof of one exists.
From the disc grew the question of Harald's grave. Adam of Bremen reports that the king, wounded fighting his son Svein, fled to Jumne and died there, while his body was carried to Roskilde. Adam wrote some ninety years after the events and is not secure in himself; no grave of Harald at Roskilde has been demonstrated. I could not retrieve the Latin wording; the article on Harald gives the passage.
Rosborn envisages a burial beneath the church at Wiejkowo, and a golden one. Marek Kryda, an independent writer and author of "Viking Poland", found a rounded rise in freely available laser-scan data (LiDAR) in 2022 and published it on Academia.edu as a probable burial mound; depending on the report, it lies under the church or some way from it. The two also contradict each other: a baptised king belongs in a churchyard, Rosborn says, not in a pagan mound.
Filipowiak told PAP that LiDAR records the surface and not what lies beneath, that the rise could be natural, an old church site or a Slavic barrow, and that without the disc nobody would look at it. Ulriksen said a mound proves nothing without excavation. No dig was planned when these reports appeared, and my search up to November 2026 found none since. Wienberg is also puzzled by so gold-rich a grave for a Christian.
Rosborn also draws the Hiddensee gold jewellery and a hoard found on Rügen in 2018 into his reconstruction. That the jewellery has anything to do with Harald is already an unproven guess, and according to Videnskab.dk German archaeologists have never claimed that the Rügen hoard was Harald's treasure. A chain of this kind gains nothing from each link hanging on the next.
This case shows why archaeologists insist so stubbornly on find context. A piece from a documented excavation carries its date with it: layer, associated finds, record. A piece from a button box has only itself and what people say about it. The Kensington Runestone is the familiar counterpart from America: there too, everything hangs on a find story written down after the fact.
What could settle the dispute can be named. A contemporary record of the 1841 find. Release of the papers to independent examiners, along with the Latin original if it can be found. A complete edition of the chronicle. Publication of the material data in a peer-reviewed journal. And a dig at Wiejkowo, although that could show only what lies there, not whether the disc came from it. Until then the disc cannot serve as evidence for Harald's titles, for Jomsborg or for a grave in Poland. Anyone citing it should say so.
Is the Curmsun Disc genuine? This cannot be clearly established. Its authenticity is unproved, and so is forgery. Most specialists who have spoken publicly are sceptical.
Where was it found? Allegedly in a crypt at Groß Weckow, now Wiejkowo near Wolin, in 1841. That comes from later tradition. All that is certain is that it surfaced in Malmö in 2014.
What does it say? The inscription is read as +ARALD CVRMSVN+REX AD TANER+SCON+JVMN+CIV ALDIN+: Harald, Gorm's son, king of the Danes, Scania, Jumne, Aldinburg.
Where is the disc now? According to Wikipedia it belongs to an unnamed company and sits in a Swedish bank vault. I could not confirm this.
Is Harald Bluetooth buried at Wiejkowo? There is no archaeological evidence for it. No grave anywhere has been securely assigned to Harald.
Harald Bluetooth · Wolin · The Jomsvikings · Jelling · Adam of Bremen · Starigard / Oldenburg · The Hiddensee gold jewellery · The Kensington Runestone · Bluetooth and the king · The Pomeranians
Harald Bluetooth · Wolin & Jomsborg · Did the Fortress of Jomsborg Exist? A Harbour for 300 Ships Tested Against the Sources and the Excavations · The Jomsvikings · The Jelling stones.
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