Silver, Butter, Cloth

This is the third volume proceeding from a series of symposia investigating the economy of the Viking Age. It contains an introductory overview by Jane Kershaw (pp. 1–14) and fourteen essays grouped into four themes: the monetary and quasi-monetary functions of silver, the non-monetary functions of precious metal, sources of silver, and non-silver currencies. The fragmentation of silver (i.e. hack-silver) is a particular focus of the essays of the first group. In ‘Silver Fragmentation: Reinterpreting the Evidence of the Hoards’ (pp. 15–31), Marek Jankowiak persuasively argues that fragmentation occurred in the course of commercial transactions related to long-distance trade, so that the degree of fragmentation depends on the number of times the silver changed hands. Another convincing analysis is Gitte Tarnow Ingvardson’s ‘As Long as It Glitters: A Re-evaluation of the Mixed Silver Hoards of Bornholm, Denmark’ (pp. 32–56). This set of case-studies concludes that the combination of a hoard’s

Archaeology · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Fragmentation (computing · Hoard · Historical and Archaeological Studies · History