Vikings Used Islamic Silver Coins to Make Early Pennies, Study Reveals

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Some of the earliest Viking 'pennies' were made with silver that contained melted-down coins from the Islamic world, a new study reports.

The silver coins make up the Damhus hoard, a trove of 226 Viking Age pennies found near the town of Ribe on Denmark's Jutland Peninsula in 2018.

The study, which was published June 5 in the journal Archaeometry, analyzed the isotopes of trace elements mixed in with the silver to determine the origin of the metal.

Examination of 25 of the coins with X-ray fluorescence and other analytical techniques revealed that in some cases, more than half of the precious metal had come from Islamic silver coins called 'dirhams.'

The Viking coins were probably minted from ingots of silver produced outside Scandinavia, in part by melting down Islamic coins in bulk, the study finds.

'This silver has already had a life cycle; it's not coming straight from a mine,' said Thomas Birch, an archaeologist at the National Museum of Denmark.

The coins in the Damhus hoard came from the precise time when silver from the Islamic world was becoming common in the Viking world.

Islamic jewelry from that time has also been discovered in Scandinavia, indicating a trade network between the two cultures.

The silver in the Viking coins would have been highly valued, and a single 'pening' was enough to buy ale, bread or simple tools.

The study found that at least 30 dies had been used to stamp the sides of the coins, and they estimate that hundreds of thousands of this type of silver Viking penny were produced by the single mint at Ribe.

Early medieval Denmark was a center of the Norse world, and raiders from the coasts of Scandinavia were known as Vikings after the Old Norse word 'vikingr.'

The Vikings became notorious in 793 when they raided Christian monks on the English island of Lindisfarne, marking the beginning of the Viking Age, which ended in 1066.

The discovery provides new insights into the relationship between early Viking and Islamic silver, which was likely the result of long-distance trade.

Read the full study here: [link to study]

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