Viking silver hoards

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The silver hoards of the Vikings consist mostly of bullion , hacksilver , fragmented jewelery and silver coins , deposited during the Viking Age 800-1150 n. Chr. There are a total of hundreds of these nurseries in the UK in Ireland and in Northern Europe ( Viking Age coins from finds in the Baltic region ) . Silver hoards are still being discovered today.

Accumulated through trade , looting , ransom and tribute payments , the hoards give an insight into the Viking economy, the coinage and silver metallurgy of this time. From 995 AD, when the Viking King Olof Skötkonung converted to Christianity, the Swedish hoards also document the spread of Christianity in the region, accompanied by the disappearance of Arabic coins, which previously made up the majority in Swedish hoards. Archaeologists are primarily interested in these coins because their iconography shows what was important at the time.

The hoards in the various regions of the Viking area contain coins from European, Scandinavian and Near Eastern / Islamic mints. Often times the coins are cut into pieces or show signs that they have been “picked” with a knife to check their quality.

The coins in the hoard could be valued either by the monetary value or by the weight of the silver. Susan Kruse has argued that coin pegs are common where the government has been strong enough, e.g. B. in late Anglo-Saxon England to support a robust currency.

Ireland

Viking Age silver occurs in Ireland either as an individual find or as a hoard with coins, jewelry, bars and hacked silver. There are 107 hoards (51 coin-less and 56 coin hoards) and 150 individual finds from the early Viking Age. It seems like there were two different types of hoard. The ornate objects in the hoard include arm and finger rings ( cushalogurt hoard ) and torques . Silver brooches were also found. There are two concentrations in Ireland. The first comprises five after-school care centers in the Lough Ree area of ​​the Shannon . The largest known gold hoard from the Viking Age with a weight of 10 kg comes from Heir Island (also Hare Island) in County Cork .

Important silver treasures of the Vikings in Europe

Mints identified in Viking hoards are:

  • Haithabu , Lund and Ribe (Denmark),
  • Aquitaine, Le Mans and Le Talou (France),
  • Lewes, London and York (UK).

Newer Viking hoard

One of the more recent finds was the Harrogate depot find discovered in Yorkshire in 2007 . The Ainsbrook Hoard and Bedale Hoard were made in North Yorkshire in 2003 and 2012, respectively. Leominster and Eye's Viking hoards were made in Herefordshire in 2015.

New hoard finds from later times

2,528 silver coins were found in the Chew Valley (the second largest Norman coin find in the UK) in Somerset in 2019 . The hoard contains 1,236 coins from Harold II , the last Anglo-Saxon King of England and 1,310 coins from William I, as well as several coin fragments. 1,061 silver coins were found in Lindsey, Suffolk in 2020 .

literature

  • John Sheehan: Viking-age gold and silver from Irish crannogs and other watery places In: The Journal of Irish Archeology Vol. 18 2009 pp. 77-93
  • James Graham-Campbell, Søren Sindbæk, Gareth Williams (eds.): Silver economies, monetization and society in Scandinavia AD 800-1100 . Aarhus University Press, Aarhus 2011, ISBN 978-87-7934-585-0 (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Franks paid ransom after an attack by the Vikings on the monastery of Saint-Denis, near Paris, as early as 858 (Sh. Hoen Gård )
  2. ↑ From 994 the looting of England under Olav I Tryggvason increased and could only be ended by a payment of 16,000 pounds of silver by King Æthelred . Claims rose to £ 48,000 by 1011. The last payment in 1018 was £ 78,000 plus £ 10,500 from London. After Olav Tryggvason's return to Norway in 995, the tribute payments led to the first attempt to mint his own silver coins.