They were bent and pecked with knives to check their consistency – good silver is soft. What’s more, coins, jewellery and silver ingots were often cut into pieces. But contrary to Viggbyholm, coins and artefacts are often present in hundreds or even thousands. Like Viggbyholm, it consists of a mixture of coins and other silver artefacts, the coins being of various origins. Indeed, the average Viking hoard in Sweden is quite different. This shows that the Viggbyholm hoard belongs to a category of hoards deposited for special reasons, maybe a ritual of a kind that we do not know the exacts details of.

The hoard was very carefully deposited within a house. All the coins were turned into jewellery, mounted as pendants. The coin shows that it should be dated to the last years of the tenth century. And their Scandinavian cousins were only interested in high-quality silver coins, such as the English, German and Islamic ones.Īt the moment, I’m working in close collaboration with the Archaeologists to interpret the hoard. Maybe the reason is that the newly settled Vikings had learned from their Frankish neighbours to blend copper into the silver coins. You would have expected this affiliation to have led to an influx of Norman coins to Scandinavia, but this is clearly not the case. This is surprising because the duchy of Normandy was created when King Charles the Simple of West Francia (roughly modern-day France) gave a bit of land to the Viking chief Rolf (or Rollo) in 911. It is only the second Norman coin found in Sweden, and they have rarely been found in the rest of Scandinavia. A rare coin from Viking Normandyįound within this hoard was a Norman coin from the late tenth century. Most of the coins were the types that we usually see in Sweden: English, Bavarian, Bohemian (Czech) and Islamic coins as well as imitations of Islamic coins. It turned out to be a very interesting find. In other words, a genuine Viking silver hoard.Īs a professor in numismatics, the study of currency, I have spent my life becoming an expert in coins, so was called to help them learn more about this exciting discovery. During routine metal detecting of the site, they had located a very exciting find: eight silver necklaces and other silver jewellery along with 12 coins, everything delicately wrapped up in a cloth and deposited in a pot. They were excavating at a Viking-age settlement at Viggbyholm just north of Stockholm.

In the autumn of 2020, I was contacted by the field archaeology unit of the Swedish National Historical Museums, who are also known as the Archaeologists.

Viking arena all coins