One of the largest and most important of all Viking hoards is that from Cuerdale, near Preston, Lancashire, in the northwest of England. On May 15, 1840, workmen repairing an embankment on the southern side of the River Ribble discovered the remains of a lead-lined chest containing 8,600 items of silver coins and bullion weighing almost 90 pounds. The workmen tried to pocket some of the silver coins, but when the bailiff arrived were ordered to put them back, though they were allowed to keep one coin each from the hoard. It is likely, however, that many coins from the original hoard were stolen before the bailiff arrived. In August 1840 the hoard was dispersed to more than 170 recipients, though the majority was given to the British Museum. Other pieces from the Cuerdale Hoard eventually found their way to the National Museums Liverpool and the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford).
The astonishing collection of Viking treasure in the Cuerdale Hoard included silver coins, armlets, chains, rings, amulets, hack-silver, and ingots of various shapes and weights. Five small bone pins were also discovered with the cache (though they have since disappeared), indicating that some of the objects had been contained in separate cloth bags or parcels, held together by these pins. The silver bullion made up the majority of the hoard, weighing more than 80 pounds. The hack silver consisted of cut up arm rings and brooches of Norse, Pictish (from eastern and northern Scotland), Irish, and Carolingian (French) origin. The diverse nature of the hack-silver illustrates the wide-ranging nature of Viking trade, contact, and raiding. The international reach of the Vikings is also borne out by the origins of a number of the 7,000 coins from the Cuerdale Hoard. Experts have divided the coins into three categories, according to their source. So we have 5,000 coins from the Viking kingdoms of eastern England, minted at York around AD 900; 1,000 Anglo-Saxon issues of the ninth and 10th centuries; and coins of foreign origin. The oldest of the Anglo-Saxon coins in the hoard is a beautiful and unique penny of Ceolwulf II of Mercia (died c AD 881), which was probably minted in the 870s.
The foreign coins from the Cuerdale Hoard provide a fascinating insight into Viking trade networks. The oldest coin in the entire hoard is a Byzantine silver hexagram of Heraclius and Heraclius Constantine, minted between AD 615 and 630. There are also early Scandinavian, Carolingian, North Italian, and papal coins, as well as around 50 Kufic dirhams from the Islamic world. The Carolingian coins were the result of repeated Viking raids on the country, whereas most of the other foreign coinage came to Britain via Scandinavia. The most recent coin in the collection was minted in AD 905 by Louis the Blind (AD 880–928), emperor of the West Franks (who ruled an area roughly equivalent to modern-day France). Being the latest coin in the collection, this gives a fairly accurate terminal date for the deposition of the treasure.
12.2. Some of the Viking silver from the Cuerdale Hoard in the British Museum. Image by JMaill. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license on Wikipedia.
Furthermore, the local Viking coins from the hoard were fairly new, suggesting that the treasure was buried only two or three years after the coinage was first introduced. Thus the coins would suggest that the hoard must have been buried between 905 and 910. This date is only a few years after the Vikings were expelled from Dublin (in 902) and, taken together with the Irish origin of a large amount of the silver jewelry, would suggest that the hoard is perhaps a war chest, assembled by Vikings exiles from Ireland. Perhaps these exiles planned a military assault to reoccupy Dublin from a base on the River Ribble, and Cuerdale does lie on an overland route from Viking York to the Irish Sea. But this plan apparently didn’t work out, and the Vikings never returned to Cuerdale to recover their extraordinary rich treasure.
Another remarkable English Viking hoard comes from near the town of Harrogate in North Yorkshire. Known as the Vale of York Hoard or the Harrogate Hoard, this cache of 617 silver coins and 65 other items, including ornaments, ingots, and hack-silver, was discovered inside the remains of a lead chest in an empty field on January 6, 2007, by metal detectorist David Whelan and his son Andrew. After discovering the Viking treasure, the largest discovered in Britain since the Cuerdale Hoard, Whelan followed the law and reported the find to Amy Cooper, Finds Liaison Officer of the Portable Antiquities Scheme. The Whelans also had the foresight not only to collect every scrap of material from the find spot but also to record the precise location of the hoard, enabling archaeologists to examine the exact site of the deposition in detail, though no further evidence of Viking activity was found. One wishes all treasure hunters were this conscientious.
The most impressive objects in the Harrogate Hoard are a rare gold arm-ring (possibly of Irish origin), a fragment of a twisted silver neck-ring from northern Russia, and an exquisite mid-ninth-century gilt silver cup or bowl (originating from what is now France or western Germany), decorated with vine leaf scrolls and hunting scenes showing lions, stags, and a horse. Most of the smaller items had been put inside this silver bowl before this was placed inside the lead chest; consequently the objects from the hoard were extremely well-preserved. Experts believe that the silver vessel was used to hold communion bread and was either looted from a church or monastery in the northern Frankish Empire or given in tribute. The 617 coins in the hoard, which, like those from the Cuerdale Hoard, are a mixture of Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Scandinavian, Islamic, and Carolingian, date from the late ninth and early 10th centuries, thus giving a date for the deposition of the Harrogate Hoard in the early 10th century, probably around AD 928. The coins from the hoard shine a fascinating light on the extensive contacts of the Vikings and their cultural and religious diversity, bearing Islamic, Christian, and pre-Christian Norse pagan symbols; some even mixed Christian and pagan imagery, giving important insights into the newly Christianized Vikings and their beliefs. A good illustration of this Christianization comes in the form of a number of coins from the hoard that were minted in Viking York and stamped with a dedication to St. Peter and a Viking stylized hammer, symbol of the Viking god Thor.
Other coins in the hoard give us important political information on northern England during the ninth and 10th centuries. One of the Viking silver pennies from the hoard was issued at a previously unrecorded mint of RORIVACASTR, thought to be modern-day Rocester, to the north of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire This coin is not only important because it came from an unknown mint, but because it suggests something that historians were not aware of: that Viking control during this period extended into the English Midlands. Most of the English silver pennies from the hoard date from AD 880 onward (the latter part of King Alfred’s reign and the early part of the reign of his son Edward the Elder). Motifs and buildings stamped on some rare examples of these coins show that Edward and his sister Æthelflæd (ruler of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia from AD 911–918) extended their authority in the Midlands at this time. The latest coins in the hoard belong to the reign of Anglo-Saxon King Athelstan (AD 924–939), who conquered Viking Northumbria (northern England and southeast Scotland) in 927, an important moment in the unification of England. The latest coin from the treasure (introduced in 927/928) celebrates this accomplishment and gives Athelstan the title of “REX TOTIUS BRITANNIAE” (“King of all Britain”).
The Harrogate Hoard may well be related to the Anglo-Saxon victory in Northumbria, perhaps belonging to a wealthy Viking leader who buried it for safekeeping during the unrest that followed the conquest. With objects originating from places as far apart as Ireland in the west and Russia and Afghanistan in the east, the Harrogate Hoard illustrates the wide extent of Viking travels and trade links, and the diversity of their cultural contacts in the first quarter of the 10th century. In July 2007, the Hoard was transferred to the British Museum and later valued by the independent Treasure Valuation Committee at £1.08 million ($1.75 million). The treasure was purchased jointly by the York Museums Trust and the British Museum with help from funding from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund, and the British Museum Friends. The money from the Harrogate Hoard was split between
the finders (the Whelans) and the landowners, showing that when hunting for treasure doing the right thing can sometimes bring rich rewards.
Before we leave Viking England, one more treasure hoard is worthy of a brief mention. This is the Silverdale Hoard, discovered by metal detectorists in September 2011, in a field just outside the village of Silverdale, near the coast in north Lancashire (northwest England), only around 60 miles from where the Cuerdale Hoard was found. This huge collection of more than 200 pieces of silver jewelry was found inside a lead container and included 10 complete arm rings, two finger rings, brooch fragments, a fine wire braid, and 141 pieces of hack-silver. The finds date to around AD 905–910, a little earlier than the Harrogate Hoard but also during the same period of bitter struggles between the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons in the north of England. The most interesting find from the Hoard is what has become known as the Airdeconut coin. This unique coin is stamped with the name “Airdeconut” (probably an Anglo-Saxon rendition of the Viking “Harthacnut”), a previously unknown Viking ruler of northern England. The reverse of the coin bears a Christian inscription “DNS (Dominus) REX” with the letters arranged in the form of a cross. The coin, dated to around AD 900, illustrates that only a few decades after the Vikings began permanent settlement in Britain they had converted to Christianity.
Viking presence in Russia dates from as far back as AD 750. Indeed the name Russia is believed by some scholars to originate from Vikings known as “Rus’ people” who came to modern Estonia, Ukraine, and Russia through the trade routes from Sweden. There are numerous Viking hoards from the area of modern Russia, including those from the medieval cities of Novgorod, St. Petersburg, and Staraya Ladoga, testament to close trading links with the Viking homeland. On May 17, 1988, a Viking silver hoard was apparently discovered near the Spasskiye Gates in the Kremlin in Moscow, a site that has been continuously inhabited since the second century BC. Although there is little information available about this find, the hoard included 10 hollow pendants and an arm ring made from several strands of silver with gilded dragon heads at its ends. This arm ring is thought to have originated in the island of Gotland, in the Baltic Sea, east of the Swedish mainland, right in the heart of the Viking homeland.
Between 700 and 800 Viking silver hoards have been reported on Gotland, which makes a lot of sense when one considers the geographical location of the island, in the middle of the trade routes between Western and Eastern Europe. There are no natural sources of silver on Gotland, so the treasure hoards found on the island must be a result of Viking raids, political alliances, marriages, tributes, and trading contacts with Europe and the Middle East.
A huge Viking hoard was discovered in 1999 at Spillings Farm, near the Bay of Boge, in the north of Gotland. This vast treasure included 14,295 silver coins, 486 silver armlets, and bronze objects from the eastern Baltic. The latest date for the hoard, given by the coins in the collection, is AD 870/1. In 2000, Swedish archaeologists excavating a Viking site near a harbor on Gotland discovered one of the largest Viking hoards to date. The treasure consisted of 13,000 Arabic silver coins, 500 arm bands and bracelets, numerous silver bars, rings, and hack-silver, valued today at £400,000 ($646,140). The hoard had been buried around the same time as the Spillings Hoard, c AD 870, under the floorboards of a wealthy merchant’s house, presumably for safekeeping. Other notable hoards from Gotland include two from Ocksarve in Hemse parish, in the south of the island. The first of these hoards was discovered in 1920, the second in 1997. The first hoard is remarkable for the 123 Byzantine silver coins it contained (only around 400 Byzantine silver coins have ever been found in Scandinavia), the vast majority of which belonged to Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (AD 1042–1055). Experts believe these Byzantine coins may have been part of the salary of a Viking mercenary, perhaps a former member of the Varangian guard (an elite unit of the Byzantine army initially composed mainly of Norsemen). These hoards graphically illustrate the wealth of many of the inhabitants of Gotland during the early Viking period.
Viking hoards are much less common on the Swedish mainland, though there have been one or two interesting discoveries, the most important of which was found near Sweden’s main international airport in 2008. In April of that year archaeologists from the Swedish National Heritage Board came upon a spectacular Viking silver hoard while excavating a Bronze Age tomb in the Steningehöjden, a residential area of Sigtuna, near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, Stockholm. Unusually, the treasure was found inside the burial chamber of the prehistoric tomb, which had stood there for at least 1,400 years before the Vikings Age. The cache consisted of 472 silver coins, most of which were minted in Baghdad in modern-day Iraq and Damascus in Syria, though some originated in Persia and North Africa. Most of the coins in the hoard had been cut into pieces, indicating that the Vikings valued them for their silver content rather than their monetary value. Kenneth Jonsson, a professor at the Stockholm Numismatic Institute, part of the archaeological department at the University of Stockholm, has dated the Arlanda airport hoard to about AD 850. This date shows that the Vikings were receiving foreign currency through overseas trade, or perhaps obtaining loot from raids, much earlier than previously thought. It is rare for Viking hoards to be deposited inside prehistoric monuments, and one can only speculate that perhaps these particular Vikings believed their ancestors would protect the hoard or even placed the treasure inside as an offering for their ancestors, not intending to recover it. However, bearing in mind that the prehistoric tomb would have been a prominent landmark in the area, it is also possible that the reason for the burial is more prosaic, and that the Vikings buried the cache there so it would be easy to find when they came back for it later.
CHAPTER 13
The Quedlinburg Hoard
The incredible story behind the Quedlin-burg Hoard reads more like a movie script than a factual account. The hoard, a magnificent collection of medieval objects belonging to the Church of St. Servatius in Quedlinburg, in Germany’s Harz Mountains, was looted by the Nazis during WW II and hidden in a mineshaft on the edge of the town. In April 1945, during the last weeks of the war, the town was occupied by American troops, and the cave and its contents were put under military guard. Nevertheless, it was soon discovered that many items from the treasure had disappeared from the cave. Despite intensive searches, no trace of the hoard was found and it seemed that the exquisite treasures it contained—estimated to be worth more than $200 million today—had disappeared forever. Then in the late 1980s, after an exhaustive investigation into the case, a New York Times reporter made the incredible claim that he had located the Quedlinburg Hoard in a farm town in northeastern Texas. If this was true, how did the treasure get there and where had it been for the previous 40 years?
Quedlinburg lies on the northern edge of the Harz mountain range in the west of Saxony-Anhalt, east-central Germany. The town was founded in the ninth century and is overflowing with buildings of vast historical interest and significance, including Quedlinburg Abbey (founded by Emperor Otto the Great in AD 936), several early Gothic churches, 14th-century fortifications, a 17th-century city hall, and 1,300 half-timbered houses.
13.1. Castle and monastery of Quedlinburg. Image by Annabell Preußler. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license on Wikipedia.
The nucleus of the town, the castle/abbey/church complex, is situated on a sandstone cliff known as Castle Hill. Quedlinburg Abbey’s church, the Collegiate Church of St. Servatius, is the resting place of the first German King Heinrich I (Henry the Fowler, AD 876–936) and his wife, Mathilde (AD 895–968), later canonized as Saint Mathilda. The original collegiate church of St. Servatius was constructed when King Heinrich established his residence on Castle Hill, but this building was partly destroyed by fire in 1070. After a massive rebuilding program, spanning the years 1070 to 1129, the church emerged as a magnificent example of Romanesque architecture. It also gained prestige and wealth due to its imperial connections, accumulating con
siderable treasures, among which were religious relics, works of art, and Byzantine artifacts given to Empress Theophanu (AD 955–983), wife of Holy Roman Emperor Oto II, as wedding gifts. In 1179, a church treasury was built into the northern part of the church transept and it is there that its splendid donations were subsequently kept. In recognition of Quedlinburg’s architectural riches, UNESCO declared the entire town a World Heritage Site in 1994.
But there is a darker side to the town’s history. On July 2, 1936 (the 1,000th anniversary of Heinrich I’s death), Heinrich Himmler, the dreaded leader of the SS, the black-uniformed elite corps of Hitler’s Nazi Party, organized an elaborate midnight ceremony in the crypt of Quedlinburg Abbey in which the bones of Heinrich I, which had supposedly been excavated by the Nazis, were solemnly reburied next to his wife, Queen Mathilde. Indeed Himmler, who was deeply involved in pseudo-occult activities, was deranged enough to believe he was the reincarnation of Heinrich I, Germany’s first king and therefore, in the eyes of Himmler, the founding father of Nazism. For the duration WWII the Collegiate Church and castle at Quedlinburg were closed and converted into Nazi shrines. In 1943, threatened by continual Allied bombing, the Nazis decided that the Quedlinburg Abbey Treasure (like many others they looted at this time) should be removed and hidden from the Allies. Consequently, the treasure was taken to the edge of the town and hidden in a mine shaft (or mushroom cave, in some versions). On April 18, 1945, just two weeks before German surrender, U.S. forces in the form of the 87th Armored Field Infantry Battalion entered Quedlinburg. After surrendering the town, the Burgermeister apparently informed the U.S. commander of the location of the mineshaft and the treasure contained within it.
When the U.S. Army inspected the mineshaft along with local representatives of the Church, they found the treasure intact and posted guards at the entrance. However, a few days later there was another inspection, and it was discovered that several pieces from the hoard were missing. Although it seemed likely that American soldiers had taken the objects, nothing could be proven. Further investigations into the looting were undertaken, but these were severely hindered when Quedlinburg was occupied by the Red Army and incorporated into the Soviet Zone, eventually becoming part of East Germany in 1949. The Quedlinburg Treasure, it seems, had disappeared for good, and there was very little the U.S. Army or church officials could do about it.
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