The objects are nearly solely fragments. Aside from two easy, full finger rings, they embrace Arab cash, a braided necklace, a number of bracelets and chains, all reduce into small items—additionally referred to as hacksilver.
“This discover is from a time when silver items have been weighed and used as technique of fee. This technique known as the burden economic system and was in use within the transitional interval between the sooner barter economic system and subsequent coin economic system,” stated archaeologist and researcher Birgit Maixner, who was requested by Bednarski to investigate the items.
Maixner, who works on the College Museum of the Norwegian College of Science and Know-how, defined that on the Continent and in Western Europe, cash began for use as early because the Merovingian interval (approx. 550–800 CE), nevertheless it was solely in direction of the tip of the Viking Age—late within the ninth century—that cash started to be minted in Norway. Up till the Viking Age, a barter economic system was frequent within the Nordic international locations, however by the tip of the eighth century, the burden economic system was making inroads.
“The burden economic system was a way more versatile system than the barter economic system. Within the barter economic system, for instance, you needed to have a good variety of sheep when you needed to trade them for a cow. Weighed silver, however, was straightforward to deal with and transport, and you would purchase the products you needed when it labored for you,” the researcher famous.
Exchanging silver for cows
The 46 items of silver weigh a complete of 42 grams, which means they might have been value about six-tenths of a cow, based mostly on clues extracted from the Gulating regulation.
“That treasure quantity was value quite a bit in its time, particularly for one particular person—and in addition while you understand it wasn’t that way back that medium-sized farms with 5 cows grew to become frequent,” Maixner stated. “We don’t know if the proprietor hid the silver for safekeeping—after which was prevented from retrieving it—or if it was buried as a sacrifice or a present to some god.”
A lot of the items of silver that have been discovered weighed lower than one gram, which means that they have been used repeatedly as technique of fee. That the proprietor may need been concerned in buying and selling is, thus, an inexpensive conjecture.
In line with Maixner, typical for Scandinavian treasure troves from the Viking Age is that they include a fraction of every object. This discover, nonetheless, incorporates a number of items of the identical kind of artifact. For instance, the discover incorporates an nearly full armband, divided into eight items. Broadband bangles of this kind are thought to have been created in Denmark within the ninth century.
“We are able to see that the proprietor ready himself for buying and selling by dividing the silver into acceptable weight items. The individual in query had entry to finish broadband bracelets, a main Danish object kind, which might point out that the proprietor was in Denmark earlier than travelling as much as the Stjørdal space,” the archaeologist stated.
One other uncommon function is the age of the Arab cash. Sometimes, about three-quarters of the Islamic cash in Norwegian finds from the Viking Age have been minted between 890 and 950 CE. Solely 4 out of seven cash from this discover have been dated, however they stem from the late 700s or early 800s to later within the ninth century.
“The comparatively excessive age of the Islamic cash, the broadband armbands and the big diploma of fragmentation of a lot of the objects are extra typical of finds from Denmark than from Norway. These options additionally make it cheap to imagine that the artifacts stem from round 900 CE,” Maixner identified.
Earlier research have proven that the Kongshaug plateau had a really strategic location on the north-south highway on the entrance to the Stjørdal area, which in itself was an essential commerce route between the east and the west.
“Finds of weights and Viking Age cash on the plain throughout the river meander and on the Husby farm point out that buying and selling actions befell on this space. A Viking Age grave discover from the Moksnes farm—which included a bowl scale to weigh silver among the many artifacts discovered there—confirms this,” Maixner stated.
“Maybe the proprietor of the silver treasure discovered the buying and selling put up unsafe and hid his valuables within the entrance space to the plain, on the Kongshaug plateau. Right here it remained till Pawel Bednarski discovered it plowed up in a furrow round 1,100 years later.”
