Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Doug]

http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2002-06-24/74984.html
Viking treasure hoard yields astounding finds

06/24/2002

STOCKHOLM: Four years ago, a farmer digging in his
fields in Sweden's Baltic island of Gotland
came across a Viking coin.

He called a friend from the local museum, and
together they soon uncovered another 150 Viking
relics. But the crops growing in the fields
hindered their work and they gave up.

The following summer, with crops that year infected
by lice, they resumed their search - and on
July 16, 1999, came across the biggest
Viking-period treasure hoard so far discovered.

It had been lying there for about 1,100 years.

The Spillings hoard, described by archaeologists as
a once-in-a-lifetime discovery, includes
14,295 silver coins, 486 silver armlets, and dozens
of other artefacts, weighing a total of 85
kilograms.

"It was totally crazy," said Bjorn Engstrom, the
farmer who owns the land. "I was there for five days
when they dug up the treasure. I didn't leave the
field," he told reporters.

"The first night we camped there in a tent so
nobody could come and take it."

Engstrom, 42, whose family has owned the land since
only 1966, was not able to keep any of the
silver himself.

Dragons and the law

Buried treasure was believed to be guarded by
dragons in the days of old, but nowadays
Sweden's law on historical monuments sets strict
penalties for anyone searching for treasure
with metal detectors, or failing to report any
buried gold, silver or copper to the police or local
museums.

Anyone discovering and dutifully reporting treasure
gets a reward in line with the value of the find.
Engstrom is still waiting for his, as
archaeologists have studied only a fraction of the Spillings
hoard, named after his farm.

The complete hoard, including some bronze relics
also discovered at the same site, will be on
show in Stockholm's Museum of National Antiquities
until September 1 before returning to
Gotland.

Archaeologists believe the treasure was buried in
about AD 870.

The site appears to have been a farm even then,
said Majvor Ostergren, project leader at the
County Museum of Gotland.

"But this treasure is too big to be on a
traditional farm," she told reporters. "People there must
have been something special."

The site's proximity to one of Gotland's main
natural harbours, may be one clue.

Traders and raiders

As well as their fearsome reputation for plunder,
the Vikings were also great traders.

They penetrated to Constantinople, now Istanbul,
but then the capital of the Byzantine empire and
one of the world's richest cities, providing
soldiers for the emperor and trading with the Greek
merchants.

The extent of their trading links was revealed in
1954 on the little island of Helgo near Stockholm,
where a sixth century Buddha from northern India
was found in a Viking site.

Although Gotland had few resources of its own, its
position in the middle of the Baltic between
Sweden and Latvia made it an ideal base for trade.
The Vikings could bring in furs and amber
from Scandinavia and the Baltic coast, and ship
them along rivers into Germany or down to
Constantinople.

That explains why of the 1,400 coins from the hoard
that have been examined so far, four are
Nordic, one from Byzantium, 23 are Persian, and the
rest are Islamic.

In the ninth century, the silver money of the Arabs
was the most common coinage in Scandinavia.
The first Swedish coins were not struck until about AD 995.

The earliest coin in the hoard dates from AD 539
and is Persian, before the Islamic conquest.
The latest is from AD 870.

Coins of the khazars

One of the most important coins in the hoard,
dating from AD 830 to 840, sheds light on a place
far away: Its markings show its provenance is the
kingdom of the Khazars, a realm in southern
Russia between the Black and Caspian seas.

Its Arabic inscription reads ''Moses is the
messenger of God" - apparently a Jewish variant on the
Islamic credo "Mohammed is the messenger of God."

Only four other coins are known to have this inscription.

The Khazars were believed to have converted to
Judaism - possibly the only nation to do so - after
their ruler invited Christian, Islamic and Jewish
theologians to demonstrate the merits of their
different faiths to his court.

Although many written sources describe the Khazars
as Jews, few objects have been found in
excavations in Russia to confirm these reports. The
Khazar coin is thus important evidence.

But for visitors to the exhibition who are neither
numismatists nor historians, the most fascinating
exhibits are the hundreds of silver armlets.

The armlets are linked in bunches, indicating that
they were used as money with a set weight,
rather than jewellery.

Agencies via Xinhua
--

Doug
The price of freedom is infernal vigilantes

"The tyranny of the legislatures is the most formidable dread at
present, and will be for long years. That of the executive will come
in it's turn, but it will be at a remote period." James Madison, 15
March 1798 (_Papers of J.M._ vol 12, p.14; LC call no. JK.111.M24)