Viking riches found in Sweden

[Favonius Cornelius]

Breibart/AFP

 

Swedish experts have confirmed the finding of over 1,000 Viking-era silver coins after their chance discovery by two brothers on the Swedish island of Gotland.

 

The treasure was believed to have been buried in the 10th century and weighed about 3 kilos (7 pounds), local curator Majvor Ostergren told the TT news agency.

 

Edvin Sandborg, 20, and his 17-year-old brother Arvid dug up more than 100 coins on Monday last week, while helping their neighbour with his garden.

 

"Completely by accident I found an Arabic silver coin that's about 1,100 years old," Edvin Sandborg told TT.

[DecimusCaesar]

This reminds me of a article I read in British Archaeology many years ago about a hoard of coins dating back to the Anglo-Saxon era. the coins were forgeries of Arabic coins, or perhaps mistakes on the Arabs' behalf as they read: "There is no God but God and Allah is his prophet' instead of Muhammed. It's amazing the level of trade connections between northern Europe and the east that survived the fall of the Western Empire.

[ciccio]

This reminds me of a article I read in British Archaeology many years ago about a hoard of coins dating back to the Anglo-Saxon era. the coins were forgeries of Arabic coins, or perhaps mistakes on the Arabs' behalf as they read: "There is no God but God and Allah is his prophet' instead of Muhammed. It's amazing the level of trade connections between northern Europe and the east that survived the fall of the Western Empire.

 

Far as I remember there has been found lot of coins along the large Russian rivers through the now Baltic area and south to the Black sea or on Volga to the Caspian sea. In Russia there have not been done much research until the 1990-2000 due to the Russian goverment that did not let the Scandinavian archaeologist do research on these very interesting historical area. Now that the excavation of these areas started we may have to reconsider the importance of these traderoutes. The arabic coins also spread to Norway, and a common opinion among the archaeologist is that the vikings probably melted them to make silver jewlery that is often found here.

[Nagelfar]

This find is extra interesting since it was found in a non cultivated area. Most findings on Gotland are done in fields and any other remains are typically lost. It had only been disturbed by rabbits (they dug up the first coins). I hope to see more when they have excavated, since there might be clues as to where and why the inhabitants of Gotland burried their treasure.

 

As a curiosity, one of the guys that found the coins had already planned on being an archeologist. I guess this didn't discourage him. The guys will get a good price for the find as well.

 

/Viking ramblings

There are written references to trading and war expeditions in the east on runic stones. A favorite quote is from a stone at Gripsholm which translates (freely) into "Tola rasied the stone after his son Harald, brother of Ingvar. They left in large numbers for distant gold in the east and fed the eagle. They died in S

[Callaecus]

It's amazing the level of trade connections between northern Europe and the east that survived the fall of the Western Empire.

The trade survived, but it was not as high as in the Roman Era. Besides, let's not forget that some (most?) of the non-Viking material found in Scandinavia was instead the result of their raiding activities. The Vikings were active in the Mediterranean, having even conquered the island of Sicily (more precisely, the Normans), which can also explain the Arabic coins.