Some of the earliest Viking pennies were made with melted-down Islamic coins, study says

Researchers have discovered that some of the earliest Viking "pennies" were created using silver recycled from Islamic coins.

Their analysis of a Viking Age hoard from Denmark suggests the metal used in the pennies reached Scandinavia through extensive trade links, according to reporting from Live Science.

What happened?

In a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Archaeometry, researchers looked at a hoard of 266 Viking coins found in southern Denmark, near Damhus.

Dating to 830-850 CE, the Damhus hoard includes 266 silver coins uncovered in 2018, making it among the earliest Viking hoards ever found.

In all but four of the coins, on one side, a face thought to depict Wodan, also known as Odin, appears on one side, and a stag can be found on the other. 

Thomas Birch, the study's lead author and an archaeologist at the National Museum of Denmark, told Live Science that the coins were worth far more than a modern penny simply because of their silver content. Just one of these coins would suffice to purchase a tool or a meal.

Birch and his colleagues think the site of the discovery, once a major Viking settlement, may have served as a mint and produced hundreds of thousands of coins.

After examining some of the coins with X-ray fluorescence, along with other analytical methods, the researchers concluded that some were made from silver jewelry and coins from the Islamic world that had been melted down and reused.

Why does it matter?

The discovery offers an example of an early circular economy, with valuable metal being reused rather than discarded, then transported across vast trade routes before being turned into new currency.

The finding suggests the Viking world was connected to a broad commercial network linking Scandinavia with the Islamic world, rather than the Vikings solely relying on raiding. 

The research also suggests that imported silver was not just arriving in small quantities but was likely helping drive large-scale minting in Denmark.

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