ISLAMIC DIRHAM : VIKING HACK SILVER

PERIOD: VIKING LOCATION: LINCOLNSHIRE, UK MATERIAL: SILVER

In Lincolnshire, our county has been inhabited since prehistoric times. We’ve witnessed plenty of invasions on these agricultural plains, but there’s one that we are least known for. Everyone has heard of the great Roman Fortress Lindum Colonia but not many people can tell you about the important town and trading settlement that flourished here under the Vikings and laid down the foundations for Lincoln’s great prosperity and height during the Middle Ages. 

Yet traces of this Viking invasion in fact still remain to this very day, hidden in the modern streets and villages that make up Lincolnshire. In the City of Lincoln itself we have Danesgate, Flaxengate and Saltergate, three streets that tell a tale of Scandinavian origins. ‘Gate’ comes from the Viking word ‘geat’ which means street so a slightly closer look at these weathered street names soon reveals hints of trade and life here under the Vikings, from flax / linen working to salt trade. And it’s not just Lincoln itself that bears routes back to the Viking’s either, we have the Viking Way, a public footpath with an incredible history, and countless villages that end in -by and -thorpe, with -by meaning farmstead and -thorpe meaning hamlet. Villages once named by the Vikings. 

The Vikings first arrived in England in 865 AD after a series of previous raids along the coastline and overran several Anglo Saxon Kingdoms that existed here including East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia and of course the Kingdom of Lindsey. Better known today as Lincolnshire. But they weren’t the malicious invaders history has made them out to be and were actually keen traders. Traders who spotted the crumbling Roman ruins of Lincoln. With its already pre made defensible walls and incredible trading routes standing at the junction of two major Roman Roads and of course the important waterway links with the River Witham and Foss Dyke, Lincoln logistically was perfect for local, national and international trade. So it’s no surprise really that it became one of the ‘Five Boroughs’ of Viking Britain and alongside Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, and Stamford was a Chief Stronghold.

With its already pre made defensible walls and incredible trading routes standing at the junction of two major Roman Roads and of course the important waterway links with the River Witham and Foss Dyke, Lincoln logistically was perfect for local, national and international trade.

We all know that Viking is a bit of a buzz word in the digging trade. It doesn’t come up often and is highly sought after at the top of many bucket lists. There really is something about this band of sailing traders that captures people’s imaginations. Yet if there is one thing that years of digging have taught us here at Roman Found it’s that the best thing will come along right when you don’t expect it, in the most random of places and often it will take a bit of research to truly reveal just how special it is. Which is exactly what happened to us during an afternoon of pottering around one of our favourite fields on the permission. One that we like to call Roman Field 1. 

This particular field will always bear a very special place in our hearts as it was actually the first ever field that we got permission on and is where we honed our digging craft. We’ve dug plenty of holes in here, we found our first Roman coins, first hammered silver, first ever treasure find, seal matrix and it’s actually the very field where ‘Roman Found’ began. So needless to say at every opportunity we get we are back in here on familiar and friendly ground working those little hot zones over and over again, often rewarded with a little grotty Roman that this field seems to be full of. So that’s pretty much exactly how the day was going, we had four Roman coins in the finds tin, having a great time, meandering around a small 15m by 10m patch, with Lucie set on eeking out those small targets and adding to our Roman collection. They may be grots but every single one is special to us and Ellie will most likely spend the evening after digging, scrutinising and squinting at what little detail remains to reveal their identities. 

Then towards the edge of the field margin Lucie stops dead as a bright ringer appears in her headphones. Something very different to the calming thudding of a Roman. A quick search reveals something that immediately seems strange, unusual and definitely not the typical find. A small fragment of a hammered yet certainly not any hammered minted in this country. It’s the subsequent research that reveals the excitement over what was a rather baffling find in the field. Following a hunch on the fragment of text being Arabic it isn’t long before Ellie strikes across a match online. One that couldn’t be more connected to the Vikings and this area of England that they controlled known as the Danelaw.

A quick search reveals something that immediately seems strange, unusual and definitely not the typical find.

In Northern Europe where the Vikings originally travelled from their economy was based upon bullion. Many of the Viking raiders would have carried their own personal weight system for carrying out transactions with currency based purely upon the weight and quality of silve, regardless of what form it came in, be it coin, jewellery, or fragments. Yet here in England in the early Anglo Saxon Kingdoms that they conquered and settled upon we operated a coin based currency. So what comes about is a unique and unusual economy where for a period of time both types of currency operated alongside each other as the Vikings began minting coins like the natives were used to, to further consolidate their settlements, whilst continuing to trade in bullion. 

For the Vikings one of the largest sources of silver that was fuelling their bullion economy was Islamic Dirhams that they brought back to Northern Europe in tremendous quantities as they explored and extended their Eastern Trade Routes via Russia. Archaeologically these Dirhams are found in their tens of thousands hacked into various fragements at many Scandinavian Trading Centres and in hack silver hoards that have been uncovered across Europe. Where the Vikings went the Dirhams followed, it seemed, in fact on the Isle of Skye 19 Silver Dirhams were uncovered as part of one such hoard. 

These Islamic Dirhams have cropped up here in Lincolnshire too, over 100 have been found at the well known Viking Camp in the small village of Torksey, strategically placed on a high cliff overlooking the River Trent, where the Viking ‘Great Army’ overwinted during 872 - 873 AD. All of the Dirhams uncovered had been cut into halves or quarters or even less showing their use purely as bullion. But it wasn’t just Dirham that has been found here either as several sets of Viking Weights have been found with every single one geared towards the weight standard of the Dirhams further showing evidence of the Dirham fuelled Viking bullion economy existing in use here in Lincolnshire. 

We know the Vikings settled here, Lincoln was an important trading borough, containing even its own mint. The Vikings were here to stay and mixed with the locals. By the time of the Norman Invasion in 1066 Lincoln had a very mixed population as Scandinavian names and English names were recorded alongside each other in the Domesday Book. As well as adopting local customs it is natural that they would have continued to operate their own, perhaps this tiny fragment of early medieval foreign silver isn’t too random in its location, maybe it shows evidence of not just trade with a Viking raider 1,200 years ago but of Vikings settling in the very village we dig in.