This paper will consider the major Viking-Age silver hoard discovered by a metal detectorist in Furness, Cumbria in April 2011. The find was assembled outside the bounds of Anglo-Saxon England’s regulated economy and most likely early in the reign of Eadwig (955-9), when coins of Eadred (946-55) still dominated the currency pool. It comprises 92 coins and artefacts, and is typical of contemporary hoards of the Irish Sea region with its diverse mixture of coin (Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Viking and Arabic – whole, broken and cut) and variety of silver bullion, or hacksilver (ingot and arm-ring fragments). The material will be examined against comparable hoards from Ireland, Scotland and Man in an effort to shed light on its possible origin, and to advance our understanding of Viking movements and mercantile activity around the Irish Sea and across northern England at the start of the post Viking-York era.
Dot Boughton: The Silverdale Hoard
Dot Boughton: The Silverdale Hoard
The Silverdale Hoard of Viking silver was discovered by a detectorist in North Lancashire in September 2011 and is currently going through the Treasure process. It is the latest, very substantial, find of Viking silver from North West England. The hoard contains five complete silver bracelets of Hiberno-Norse and Norse types, various pieces of hacksilver, over 120 silver ingots and 27 silver coins, including four Arabic dirhems. The smaller items were all found within a lead container - the only intact one ever discovered. The coins are extremely interesting with one rare type attributed to King Alfred's nephew Aethelwold (ALVVALDVS) and a completely new coin type, probably of a Northumbrian ruler, Harthacnut, spelled on the obverse of the coin as 'AIRDECONVT'. This paper will look at the discovery, context and contents of the hoard with special reference to its early medieval coinage.
Ron Bude
Since Booth’s seminal study of 1984, there has been a marked increase in the number of known Eadberht sceats. It seemed that additional information might be gleaned from a detailed analysis of these coins, so this study was performed.
The sample was comprised of 229 different obverse (name side) dies, with 179 duplicate coins from those dies, and 197 different reverse ('fantastic animal') dies, with 228 duplicate coins from those dies. From these data it is estimated that approximately 522 different obverse and approximately 367 different reverse dies were originally issued. A number of potentially interesting tidbits of information were gleaned from the die links, including the observation that some dies were either used in parallel with others of the same side, or came out of and then went back into use before they were discarded.
The number of estimated total obverse and reverse dies suggests a fairly extensive coinage. In many ancient coinages, if it is accepted that the more labor-intensive die to produce is the more important one, is the 'obverse', and is thus the anvil die for which fewer dies were produced than for the hammer die, then for Eadberht’s coinage the currently accepted 'obverse' is functionally the 'reverse' and the currently accepted 'reverse' is functionally the 'obverse'.
Anna Gannon: Series J and the Continent
The paper examines the iconography of Series J in all its various Types and in particular its continental imitations. It looks at parallels in other media, and possible sources for the motifs. Special attention is dedicated to the minute reliquary casket from Ennabeuren and its fascinating numismatic decoration.
John Hines: The Hunting of the sceatt
The Old English noun sceatt appears repeatedly, always in the plural, in the earliest known law-code of an Anglo-Saxon king, that of Æthelberht of Kent. There, the sceatt is demonstrably one-twentieth of a scilling in value, and various attempts have been made to explicate these units in practical and systemic terms, citing a variety of fields of evidence and reasoning. In The Antiquaries Journal for 2010, I published a paper arguing that early uses of cognate terms to sceatt and scilling in other Germanic languages (Gothic and Old High German), a specified exchange-rate between silver and gold in Late Roman law, and archaeological evidence from Early Anglo-Saxon England, supported a bimetallic interpretation of the sceatt/scilling system at the beginning of the 7th century in Kent.Ron Bude
Since Booth’s seminal study of 1984, there has been a marked increase in the number of known Eadberht sceats. It seemed that additional information might be gleaned from a detailed analysis of these coins, so this study was performed.
The sample was comprised of 229 different obverse (name side) dies, with 179 duplicate coins from those dies, and 197 different reverse ('fantastic animal') dies, with 228 duplicate coins from those dies. From these data it is estimated that approximately 522 different obverse and approximately 367 different reverse dies were originally issued. A number of potentially interesting tidbits of information were gleaned from the die links, including the observation that some dies were either used in parallel with others of the same side, or came out of and then went back into use before they were discarded.
The number of estimated total obverse and reverse dies suggests a fairly extensive coinage. In many ancient coinages, if it is accepted that the more labor-intensive die to produce is the more important one, is the 'obverse', and is thus the anvil die for which fewer dies were produced than for the hammer die, then for Eadberht’s coinage the currently accepted 'obverse' is functionally the 'reverse' and the currently accepted 'reverse' is functionally the 'obverse'.
Anna Gannon: Series J and the Continent
The paper examines the iconography of Series J in all its various Types and in particular its continental imitations. It looks at parallels in other media, and possible sources for the motifs. Special attention is dedicated to the minute reliquary casket from Ennabeuren and its fascinating numismatic decoration.
John Hines: The Hunting of the sceatt
This paper will discuss the complex history of the term sceatt and re-evaluate the bimetallic hypothesis in the light of previous views — which argued rather that the sceatt was a small weight of gold — with particular reference to the sources and contexts cited in constructing that earlier case. Essentially, any continuing controversy resolves itself into the competing claims of back-projection from the evidence of later English sources and practices contrasted with cross-projection from contemporary and earlier, but foreign, evidence.
Stewart Lyon:Some new thoughts on interpreting Northumbrian stycas
Elizabeth Pirie’s Coinage of the Kingdom of Northumbria is a monumental and indispensable die-study of the Northumbrian stycas in the Yorkshire collections, but its use of differences in central motifs to divide the coinage of Æthelred II between his two reigns has not gained general acceptance. This presentation will discuss the chronological significance of other variations in die-cutting, including the orientation of inscriptions or individual letters and the spelling of personal names.
Rory Naismith: London and its Mint c. 880-1066
Anglo-Saxon minting atLondon can be traced back to the earliest English gold coinages of the seventh century, but its pre-eminence in England London London
Anglo-Saxon minting at
Florence Codine-Trécourt and Guillaume Sarah: Coins, coin ornaments and metal objects in Gaul
Coin production methods in the early Middle Ages are to this day very imperfectly known to scholars. The actors involved especially are a mystery, and the occasion of much confusion regarding who engraved the die, owned and provided the metal, shaped the flans, struck the coins, ordered their manufacture and distributed them. Contemporary texts, whatever their nature, are the most direct source of information on the subject. They are however insufficient, and some aspects are therefore documented only by the coins themselves. Much can be deduced from the study of their physical appearance and their metallic composition. Comparison with other metallic objects, especially gold and silver implements and ornaments can also provide an insight into the coin production of that period, as coinage and other precious objects seem to be linked so closely.
Gareth Williams: Why Were There No Coins in the Staffordshire Hoard?
Gareth Williams: Why Were There No Coins in the Staffordshire Hoard?
The important hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold from Hammerwich in Staffordshire contains no coins. This is usually explained in terms of the character of the hoard. However, this risks a circular argument, in that interpretations of the character of the hoard derive in no small part from the absence of cons. While there is disagreement on the precise dating of the hoard, it can be placed in the second half of the seventh century, a period of significant monetary developments, but developments which took place at different speeds in different Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. This paper will consider the absence of coins in the hoard against the background of monetary circulation in the period, and will then discuss how both what is present in the hoard and what is absent inform our understanding of its character, which is seen against the background of social as well as monetary and quasi-monetary economies.
Andy Woods: Thinking about Mints: Was Dublin
The received wisdom is that all of the Hiberno-Scandinavian coins of Ireland were struck in Dublin Dublin was Ireland
The work on this area is inspired by Mark Blackburn. He skilfully analysed the imitations and ‘imitations of imitations’ within the Irish, Scandinavian and Irish Sea series, carefully delineating new mints and re-assigning series of coins. His approach moved beyond a view that unthinkingly assigned abnormal coins to Ireland or Scandinavia , seeking proof in finds and the study of the dies. This work successfully isolated at least one ‘Irish Sea mint’ in the early eleventh century and is the inspiration behind this paper.
