Of Birka in Sweden Preliminary Results

73 Means of Payment and the Use of Coins in the Viking Age Town of Birka in Sweden Preliminary Results Ingrid Gustin The article discusses aspects of the Viking Age trade and exchange in relation to means of payment. The analyses are based on the minted and unminted silver, as well as on the weights that were retrieved during the 1990—95 excavations of the Black Earth in Birka. It is stated that silver was primarily used for other purposes than small-scale transactions during the 8th and 9th centuries. However, the situation seems to have changed during the 10th century. Silver, especially minted silver, was now highly fragmented and might have been used for exchange and trade in local products. Ingrid Gustin, Department ofArchaeologv, Lund University, Sandgatan L SE-223 50 Lund, Sweden. BARTER, EXCHANGE AND MEANS Vikings as means of payment (Sawyer 1985: OF PAYMENT IN THE VIKING AGE 162; Jansson 1983:232). When Viking Age trading-places are excavat- There are many questions which can be ed, several types ofobjects are retrieved which rai sed in order to come closer to the character might be used for interpreting how trade and of Viking Age trade and exchange. In the exchange of goods was carried out in a society following I will concentrate on how the mate- not yet dominated by modern market economy. rial culture, through weights and coins, mint- The Scandinavian Viking Age world seems to ed silver, as well as other silver objects (i.e. have consisted of a society where different unminted silver), can be used for commenting and contrasting economies and systems of on different types of economic transactions. exchange (gift-exchange —plunder, primitive Two scholars with different opinions on economy —proto-market economy) existed whether barter, credit or the exchange ofgoods side by side. In this society the exchange of for means of payment was representative for goods could be carried out in different ways: the Viking Age, are Peter Sawyer and Heiko through barter, credit or by means of payment. Steuer. According to Steuer, barter might have In contrast to modern society, means of pay- been used during the Viking Age, but barter ment were not standardised and completely was not the rule. Instead the exchange of based on coinage. Finds from Birka show that goods was based on goods for weighed silver, fragmented silver objects, Islamic coins, and in the form of fragmented silver objects or pieces of bronze objects might have been used coins of first Islamic and then later English or as means of payment, as well as beads of glass German origin. Especially after 880, when the and rock-crystal. From historical sources we import of dirhams started to increase, silver also know that cloth and furs were used by the can be considered to be a standard of value as Current Swedi sh Archaeologv, Vot. 6, l998 74 Ingrid Gusdn well as an article of exchange that was used different economic character and chronology everywhere. One of Steuer's main points is also (Hårdh 1996:166).I will therefore concen- that two different economic zones developed trate on the artefacts from just one place, in Europe during the Viking Age. A western Birka. The archaeological material that will be zone where exchange and means of payment used is from the recent excavations in the were based on coins (Miinzgeldwirtschaft), Black Earth, that took place in Birka from and an eastern zone with means of payment in 1990 to 1995. the form of weighed silver (Gewichtgeldwirt- schaft) (Steuer 1987a:122, 1987b:490). Peter Sawyer, on the other hand, is of the BIRKA: A TRADING-PLACE IN opinion that trade even in a place like Hedeby, THE BALTIC REGION the most important trading-place in the Baltic Birka is situated on the island of Björkö, an area, must have depended mainly on barter or island with a central position in the lake credit. According to Sawyer, the amount of Mälaren, Sweden. Foreign ships could reach coins found during the excavations in Hedeby the trading-place in Mälaren through a long and at other places in Scandinavia, is so small strait from the Baltic. From Björkö the water- that coins can not have been the main medium way could be followed either north to the old of exchange during the 9th century. Sawyer central region of Uppland, or west to the inner also points out that large quantities of silver regions of the Mälar valley. reached Scandinavia during the 10th and 1 lth Hedeby and Birka, and perhaps also Wol- centuries, and that the inflow of silver seems lin, are considered the main trading-places to have stimulated the economy. This is shown around the Baltic during the Viking Age. by the changing character ofthe hoards, where Hedeby was probably the leading trading- the proportion of coins and small fragments of place. The occupied area in Hedeby is 30 unminted silver increases. Sawyer maintains hectares, and it has been estimated that there that silver, both in minted and unminted form, are between 3000 and 7000 graves around the was now more commonly used in local trade, trading-place (Sawyer 1993:147;Ambrosiani but that much of the local trade in Scandinavia &Clarke 1993:138).The area of Birka's Black was still done by barter (Sawyer 1990:285- Earth — i.e. the stratified deposits from the 286). occupation — is about seven hectares and the The question of whether barter and credit, number of graves has been estimated to c. or exchange based on means of payment, 3000 (Ambrosiani 1992:11).Hedeby as well predominated during the Viking Age is of as Birka can be dated back to the 8th century. course almost philosophic. A specific propor- Even today there are visible remains of the tional relation between different ways of trading-place of Birka. The hillfort and its exchange can hardly be established, since it is surrounding rampart is a landmark from afar. impossible to say whether or not the artefacts The surviving parts of the town rampart mark found on archaeological sites have been used the extent of the Black Earth. Terraces of stone for barter and credit. The analysis must there- indicate several foundations for jetties (Am- fore be restricted to the existence and changing brosiani & Erikson 1991:16).The grave amount of objects, such as minted and unmint- mounds are spread out in the landscape, form- ed silver, which can be categorised as means ing cemeteries. During the summer, when the of payment. Furthermore I consider it prob- water of Mälaren sinks to low levels, wooden lematic to comment on the economic situation piles can be seen in the water immediately in general for such a vast and differentiated outside the former harbour. The piles were region as Scandinavia. Recent studies have once part of a defensive system which blocked shown that Scandinavia and the Baltic region the entrance to the harbour from invaders. And can be divided into several subregions with finally there is one more monument which Current Swedieh Archaeology, Voh 6, 1998 Menas of Pas&nenr and the Use of Coins 75 should be mentioned in connection with Birka. silver, and different types of weights and frag- On Adel sö, the island next to Björkö, archaeo- ments of balances indicate economic transac- logical remains indicate that a royal manor tions. In the following I will use the amount of was established on the island in the middle of weights, minted silver and unminted silver, as the 8th century. The manor was situated on a well as the weight of the silver objects, to plateau overlooking the strait to Björkö and analyse how transactions were carried out in Birka. Birka. Birka has been of interest to historians and From the excavated area of 1990—95, scientific researchers since the 17th century. altogether 66 objects of unminted silver were At the end of the 19th century c. 1000 graves retrieved. The objects were mainly fragment- were excavated, and trenches were dug ed and weighed from 0.05 g to 17.33 g. Much through the Black Earth. In 1990—95 new of the material found at a low level in the excavations were undertaken in the Black trench was damaged by corrosion, and the Earth. About 300—350 m'- of the central part of objects from these earliest phases might have the occupation area was excavated. During lost a great deal of weight during conserva- the excavation the layers were dug strati- tion. The silver objects found consisted of 30 graphically using single context planning. objects and fragments of jewellery, I7 pieces Each deposit was machine- and water sieved, of undefined scrap, 12 semi-manufactured a process which recovered all finds of 2 mm pieces (rods, wire), and seven pieces of ingots. and larger. More than 70000 find records were The total weight ofthese objects was 136.61 g. registered from the site, even though parts of All weights in this text refer to values after the trench had already been submitted to exca- conservation. vation in the 1870s. The minted objects have been analysed by The excavation showed that Birka existed Gert Rispling of the Numismatic Research as a trading-place as early as the 8th century. Group at the Department of Archaeology, During the first 100 years the main part of the Stockholm University. The material consists excavated area was used for activities con- of 106 prehistoric coins or fragments of coins nected with metalworking and bronze casting. or coinlike objects. Of these, 89 are made of In the middle of the 9th century the central plot silver and 18 are made of coppper.

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