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Viking Age Silver 'Currency' Ingot Viking Age Silver 'Currency' Ingot Viking Age Silver 'Currency' Ingot
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Details

LOT 1665

Viking Age Silver 'Currency' Ingot

CIRCA 9TH-11TH CENTURY A.D. OR LATER

1 1/4 in. (32 grams, 30 mm).

A hacked irregular hammered silver ingot, probably melted down loot creating a monetised piece of 'Hack' for Viking trade; X-ray Fluorescence analysis provides the following results: Ag (91.7%), Cu (4.09%), Fe (3.69%), Zn (0.19%), Au (0.19%), Pb (0.13%). [No Reserve]

Provenance

Ex property of a UK gallery, early 2000s.
This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

Literature

See Hårdh, B., Silver in the Viking Age. A Regional-Economic Study, Acta Archaeologica Lundensia no.25, Stockholm, 1996; Blackburn, M., Viking Coinage and Currency in the British Isles, London, 2011.

Footnotes

Ingots of gold and silver were regularly produced in the Early Medieval period when trade took place between monetised economies (Anglo-Saxon England, Francia, Frisia) and their non-monetised neighbours in southern Scandinavia (Blackburn, 2011). Ingots were a convenient means of storing wealth which could be converted into display items (weapon fittings, clothing fasteners, tableware) or used to gild silver and bronze items (Hårdh, 1996).

CONDITION
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AUCTIONS:

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LOT 1665

Viking Age Silver 'Currency' Ingot

Sold for (Inc. bp): £143

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