![]() For example, the find contains an almost complete armband, divided into eight pieces. This find, however, contains several pieces of the same type of artifact. Typical for Scandinavian treasure troves from the Viking Age is that they contain a fragment of each object. Unusual features of these artifacts could reveal some possibilities. Was the owner a local seller who had already sold his goods-or a visitor who was going to buy goods for resale? That the owner might have been involved in trade is thus a reasonable conjecture. Most of the pieces of silver that were found weigh less than one gram, which suggests that they were used repeatedly as means of payment. "We don't know if the owner hid the silver for safekeeping-and then was prevented from retrieving it-or if it was buried as a sacrifice or a gift to some god," says Maixner. "That treasure amount was worth quite a lot in its time, especially for one individual-and also when you realize it wasn't that long ago that medium-sized farms with five cows became common.īut why on earth would someone have buried such a fortune? A bit of figuring based on that law suggests that this treasure trove was worth about six tenths of a cow," says Maixner. "Of course, we can't say anything for sure, but the Gulating law gives us some clues about the price of a cow. How many cows would you have gotten for that amount of silver in the Viking Age, you might wonder? The 46 pieces of silver weigh a total of 42 grams. Weighed silver, on the other hand, was easy to handle and transport, and you could buy the goods you wanted when it worked for you," said Maixner. In the barter economy, for example, you had to have a fair number of sheep if you wanted to exchange them for a cow. "The weight economy was a much more flexible system than the barter economy. ![]() Up until the Viking Age, a barter economy was common in the Nordic countries, but by the end of the 8th century, the weight economy was making inroads. 550–800 CE), but it was only towards the end of the Viking Age-late in the 9th century-that coins began to be minted in Norway. On the Continent and in Western Europe, coins started to be used as early as the Merovingian period (approx. This system is called the weight economy and was in use in the transitional period between the earlier barter economy and subsequent coin economy," explains Maixner. "This find is from a time when silver pieces were weighed and used as means of payment. Apart from two simple, complete finger rings, they include Arab coins, a braided necklace, several bracelets and chains, all cut into small pieces-also called hacksilver. ![]() The find consists of a trove of 46 objects in silver that are almost exclusively fragments. This suggests that they were probably used as means of payment rather than as jewellery. Rings like this are often part of treasure finds, but not commonly found in Viking Age graves. Finding this big a treasure from the Viking Age hasn't happened in Norway for a long time," says Birgit Maixner, an archaeologist and researcher at the NTNU University Museum. It was only when researcher and archaeologist Birgit Maixner at the NTNU University Museum was contacted that Pawel found out just how exciting the find was. ![]() It was only when I got home and rinsed off one of the bangle pieces that I realized this was an exciting find," says Bednarski.īednarski submitted the artifacts to the county municipality archaeologists, who confirmed that the find was of interest and presumably from the Viking Age. "The objects were covered in clay, so it wasn't easy to see what they looked like. Then another ring appeared-and then a piece of a bangle," Bednarski says.Įventually he had unearthed a whole trove of small silver objects, including pieces of coins, jewelry and silver wire-all a mere two to seven centimeters below the ground. "The first item I found was a small ring that didn't look particularly interesting at first glance. ![]()
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