Artikeln behandlar hela gruppen om sammanlagt fem bevarade vikingatida skatter som hittats i Närke. Varför, och varifrån, fördes ädelmetaller till Närke? Vem använde dem och hur? Var och varför deponerades ädelmetallerna i området? Och hur förhåller sig dessa mönster till en mer generell bild av hur ädelmetall hanterades i det vikingatida Skandinavien?

Den vikingatida eliten i Närke kunde troligen dra många ekonomiska och politiska växlar på regionens strategiska läge och genom att skapa nätverk med allierade i flera riktningar. Ur det perspektivet kan depåfyndens innehåll bättre förstås än enbart i termer av ekonomiskt produktionsöverskott, även om detta säkert också var en del av områdets och elitens förutsättningar. Skattfyndens innehåll kan kopplas till en prestigeekonomi och de innehåller ett varierat men i huvudsak inom-skandinaviskt material som särskilt tydligt pekar västerut. Närkes strategiska läge i termer av geografi och passage för människor och varor var en viktig faktor som kom att forma de elitnätverk där ädelmetaller och statusföremål cirkulerade. Analysen av innehåll och fyndsammanhang tar oss närmare tidens religiösa praktik, dess sociala och ekonomiska förutsättningar, och de individer som en gång samlade ihop och nedlade skatterna.

This paper sets out to re-member coins into archaeological discourse. It is argued that coins, as part of material culture, need to be examined within the theoretical framework of historical archaeology and material-culture studies. Through several case studies we demonstrate how coins, through their integration of text, image and existence as material objects, offer profound insights not only into matters of economy and the 'big history' of issuers and state organization but also into 'small histories', cultural values and the agency of humans and objects. In the formative period of archaeology in the 19th century the study of coins played an important role in the development of new methods and concepts. Today, numismatics is viewed as a field apart. The mutual benefits of our approach to the fields of archaeology and numismatics highlight the need for a new and constructive dialogue between the disciplines.

In 1940 a man decided to take some precautionary measures to protect his savings against the imminent threat of the Battle of Britain. To avoid being left without means in the event of a German invasion, prevent devaluation of his savings and possibly also to speculate in rising silver prices he bought two large silver ingots, worth £250 and weighing about 90 kilograms, loaded them into a pram, and went out to bury them in a small wood nearby. The man was Alan Turing (1912–1954), famous for his wartime success in breaking the German Enigma code with his team, and for his groundbreaking work on electric machines which were to develop into the first real computers. Turing is also well-known to many who work with coins as one of the scholars behind the Good-Turing frequency estimation formula, used within numismatics to calculate the number of coins of a specific type produced from an identified number of dies. This paper meanders from Alan Turing's hidden treasure on to his scientific work and to his various connections with numismatics: the Good-Turing formula, Joan Clarke, and commemorative coins.

Den uppmärksammade depån från Eketorp i Närke, som hittades på 1950-talet, diskuteras här i ljuset av nya fynd från 2017 och 2019 och utifrån ett bojektsbiografiskt perspektiv. Depån (skatten) innehåller ett exceptionellt stort antal miniatyrer och hängen och några ovanliga mynt bland ett större antal. I sin helhet förefaller den vara medvetet komponerad för att uttrycka en identitet, som en vikingatida kvinna ur eliten.

This chapter focuses on two general issues of relevance to the investigation of coin finds in church buildings based on case studies of two medieval churches, Arby and Gränna, in the province of Småland, Sweden.

Firstly, there is the issue involving therelationship between coin use in churches and the ownership of the church, whichcould be in the hands of either private patrons or parish congregations. What differencesin coin use might have resulted from the different ways a church might be managed? Can the coins help us to see such changes? Of central importance to this line ofinvestigation is the notion that coins reflect and are part of their historical context, butalso affected people’s everyday and religious lives (e.g. used for indulgences, masses,embellishment of church space, opening up interior space and power relations).

Secondly, there is the relationship between coin finds from churches and general coin use in society. How should differences in coin find patterns and fluctuations in the intensity of deposition be interpreted? To what extent are patterns from coin finds in churches useful for extrapolating and for interpretations of the role of coins outside of that specific context? Here, evaluations of the depositional processes and of the composition of the coin finds are of great consequence. This line of enquiry seeks to push beyond the common view that the church is “a society in miniature,” partly accepting it, but also underlining the unique character of the ecclesiastical context and of the events taking place in it, and thus the particular conditions for artefacts found there.

The results of this study of two Småland churches indicate, firstly, that coin use inside churches in Sweden only took off in a significant way with the formation of parishes in the thirteenth century, when congregations took over the responsibility for the church. Secondly, that coin use in churches was largely connected with offerings, and with certain events, such as the celebration of a designated saint’s day and fundraising for building projects. This raises the question of whether, and in what ways, fluctuations in the coin material found in ecclesiastical contexts may be used to discuss societal and economic phenomena outside of the church walls.

Coin finds in religious contexts raised a significant number of questions concerning the conception and use of coins and money in different geographical and temporal settings. Votive offerings, ritual minting and donations are but a few examples of how coins were, and still are, used as material mediators between humans and gods. In the Divina Moneta Round Table, the use of coins and money for religious purposes was discussed from an understanding of the particular material qualities of coins (such as metal, size or iconography) in combination with their connotations in the light of different socio-cultural phenomena (such as abundance, kingship or protection). These material and ideological aspects were related to patterns of deposition in religious contexts and to detailed numismatic evidence, drawing on cases of coins from various historical, geographical and numismatic contexts.

Docent Jan Peder Lamm avled den 15 juni 2020. Vid sidan om sin långa yrkeskarriär var han mycket aktiv i Svenska Fornminnesföreningen dit han rekryterades redan som student, och han var under många år medlem i styrelsen samt sekreterare i Stipendiekommittén. Till minne av Jan Peder Lamms livslånga engagemang och stora arbetsinsats för arkeologin och för föreningen har Svenska Fornminnesföreningen därför startat en ny fond i hans namn, ”Svenska Fornminnesföreningens fond till Jan Peder Lamms minne” med inriktning mot den nordiska järnålderns arkeologi och bildvärld.

Rapport från Frida Ehrnstens disputation med avhandlingen Pengar för gememe man? Det medeltida myntbruket i Finland, Helsingfors 16 november 2019.

Att lära medeltidens nordbor att använda mynt tog hundratals år. Nu står vi först i kön till det kontantlösa samhället, vilket lär få oanade konsekvenser för vår relation till pengar – och varandra.

Föredraget behandlade den äldsta gotländska myntningen, som präglades från ca 1140 till ca 1290 e.Kr.

Är den maritima arkeologin fast i ”specialiseringens dilemma”? På vilket kulturhistoriskt område kan maritim arkeologi säga något väsentligt som inte kan belysas utifrån andra premisser? Här föreslås en ökad, snarare än minskad, närhet till det empiriska materialet, men även till allmänarkeologisk teori och problemformuleringar. I skärningspunkten mellan människa, vatten och ting finns den maritima arkeologins särskilda förutsättningar och unika kvalitéer att förvalta och utveckla.

Coinage began to be used from around AD 995 in Scandinavia. These early coins imitated contemporary Anglo-Saxon coins but not in a passive or unquestioning way, but as part of complex chain of citations by which imported artefacts were adapted and re-contextualized. For more than thirty years the English and Scandinavian coinages were closely connected through a network of humans and objects that moved, physically and conceptually, between mints and kingdoms. Different iconographical models were used in a strategic/rhetorical way by commissioners and artisans to create relations between cognitive nodes through association, referencing, paraphrasing and appropriation. When circulating, the coins linked users to an official and shared discourse, and maintained the created relations through the impact of their materiality. While many re-contextualizing practices in the Viking Age seem to deal with reconnection with the past, the coin-imitation practice apparently worked mainly within a contemporary conceptual framework, although there are components of ‘ancientness’ as well. Object agency and the hybrid, creative, characters of these coins provide starting points for a deeper understanding of the coins’ wider connotations and meanings, as well as for the imitative practice itself.

Coins have played an important role in religious and ritual practice ever since they started to be produced. The claim is sustained by numerous sources: coin finds in archaeological contexts,written sources and images. Why people deposit coins is therefore a fundamental question for understanding both the use of the material object and the conceptual framework within which ritual activity occurred.

Kapitlet fokuserar tre teman: uppfattningar om "pengar" och "mynt" inom arkeologin, mynt som arkeologiskt material, och mynt som en del av den arkeologiska forskningshistorien. Resonemangen bygger på ett flertal konkreta exempel, både gamla och nya, från arkeologisk och numismatisk forskning, och vikt läggs vid teori och metod.

Rapport från Nordiskt numismatiskt forskarsymposium IX, Helsingfors, 15 november 2019.

År 2019 har Svenska Fornminnesföreningen varit en aktiv del av den svenska kulturhistoriska debatten och verksamheten i 150 år sedan den grundades 1869. För att uppmärksamma detta hölls en jubileumsdag i Riddarhuset i Stockholm den 29 november 2019 och den 28 februari 2020 hölls ett symposium på Armémuseum i Stockholm. En jubileumsresa gjordes till Småland med besök vid Inglinge hög. Den här boken har tillkommit för att ytterligare upp-märksamma föreningens 150-åriga historia och sammanfatta händelserna under jubileumsåret.

Landskapet Närke ligger centralt placerat i Mellansverige och var under vikingatiden en passage mellan olika områden. Detta kunde utnyttjas av områdets elit, som skapade överskott genom handel och utbyte och inte minst genom att strategiskt använda ädelmetaller för att stärka sina positioner inom släktskapsnätverk och politiska allianser. Bland annat kan en särskild koppling till Norge ses genom skattfynden.

In present-day Scandinavia a coinage was initiated about AD 995, which imitated contemporary Anglo-Saxon coins. For more than thirty years the English and Scandinavian coinages were closely connected through a network of humans and objects that moved, physically and conceptually, between mints and kingdoms. Coinage is often seen as articulating sovereign rights in a certain area, but the Anglo-Scandinavian coinage network instead cut across kingdoms from west to east. Despite ongoing state-formation processes, key valuables like artisans and dies were shared in the network, causing change in power relations and conceptions of value.

Different iconographical models were used in a strategic/rhetorical way by commissioners and artisans to create relations between cognitive nodes through association, referencing, paraphrasing and appropriation. When circulating, the coins linked users to an official and shared discourse, and maintained the created relations through the impact of their materiality. While many re-contextualizing practices in the Viking Age seem to deal with reconnection with the past, the coin-imitation practice apparently worked mainly within a contemporary conceptual framework, although there are components of ‘ancientness’ as well. Die-link studies here provide a source of theoretical inspiration for how to study linear as well as non-linear connections and networks in the past. Through the repetitive practices of coin-making, artefact types experience gradual changes and thus new categories and articulations are created. Object agency and the hybrid character of these coins provide starting points for a deeper understanding of the coins’ wider connotations and meanings, as well as for the imitative practice itself.

The latest volume in the series Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles (Vol. 67) deals with the substantial and high-quality collections held by the British Museum. It is here reviewed jointly with the first part dedicated to the same collection (Vol. 63). The two volumes provide an important summary and update on the research on Anglo-Saxon coinage, and make it available and accessible to a general audience, collectors and scholars.

Scientia potentia est — knowledge is power. Few things embody this sentence better than the chair. We will explore it through an amulet from the Eketorp hoard (Närke, Sweden), deposited in a wetland in the 960s.

In the 12th century, some authority on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea started off a coinage, the first ever on Gotland and the first medieval coinage of Sweden as a whole. Quite remarkably, these and any following coins minted on the island never adjusted to the Swedish mainland royal coins in weights or iconography, but seem to have been independently administered even though the island was within Swedish power (for any period when it was not under somebody else’s control). In the 12th century and well into the 13th, Gotlandic coins had a strong impact on certain areas of the mainland, and in the 13th century they were even used as a model for new coinages in the Baltic Sea area. Interestingly, these first Gotlandic coins in several ways show where their inspiration came from, and thus perhaps who or what motivated their coming into being: trading partners and other guests from the southwestern parts of the Baltic and North Sea.

The object-biographical approach is popular and well-established in archaeology, providing useful structures for conducting investigations and creating historical narratives. The approach is attractive because it encourages the consideration of many different angles like networks, embodiment and memory. It also facilitates the appreciation of objects as agents and allows for multivocality and the treatment of multiple time layers. Still, the approach suffers from a built-in risk of constructing cumulative and pre-determined narratives, describing objects rather than providing an understanding of past worlds. These problems result from an archaeological eye which is directed mainly to the objects themselves' and the bio- (life) part, while little attention is paid to the -graphy (writing). Material aspects and scientific method are often carefully considered, while humanistic theory and methodology are little reflected upon. Here it is suggested that more weight should be given to humanistic traditions, where biographical writing as such has its own theory and strategies, one example here being object biographies in the shape of It-narratives'. The object-biographical field of archaeological study needs to be revitalized by renewed theoretical input, in particular with attention to the different strategies and myriad possibilities for writing object lives.

The study of process is fundamental to our understanding of past worlds. Yet, despite a growing interest in processual aspects of relations and transformations in recent strands of thought, the concept itself is rarely discussed in contemporary archaeology. In this volume, the authors aspire to put the concept back on the map by combining old and new perspectives. Applying concepts such as hybridity, resilience, punctum, and flat ontology, they present fresh and innovative analyses encompassing a wide array of issues of central importance to archaeology.

I vår kommer den så kallade Everlöv-skatten att bjudas ut på auktion. Depåfyndet består av en samling om ca 900 mynt och silverföremål som enligt ägaren hittats i en gammal chiffonjé på en gård utanför Lund i Skåne. Sammansättningen visar tydligt att föremålen kommer från en vikingatida skatt som deponerades efter 1018 e.Kr.

Ska kulturarv kunna säljas och köpas som vilken vara som helst? Det tycker nog inte de flesta. I varje fall kunde man förvänta sig att Kulturmiljölagen (KML) skulle fungera som ett mäktigt skydd mot kommersiella krafter. Är det så?

This edited collection analyses the phenomenon of coin use for religious and ritual purposes in different cultures and across different periods of time. It proposes an engagement with the theory and interpretation of the ‘material turn’ with numismatic evidence, and an evidence-based series of discussions to offer a fuller, richer and fresh account of coin use in ritual contexts. No extensive publication has previously foregrounded coins in such a model, despite the fact that coins constitute an integrated part of the material culture of most societies today and of many in the past. Here, interdisciplinary discussions are organised around three themes: coin deposit and ritual practice, the coin as economic object and divine mediator, and the value and meaning of coin offering. Although focusing on the medieval period in Western Europe, the book includes instructive cases from the Roman period until today. The collection brings together well-established and emerging scholars from archaeology, art history, ethnology, history and numismatics, and great weight is given to material evidence which can complement and contradict the scarce written sources.

For Scandinavia and regions subject to Norse contact and settlement across northern and western Europe, the Viking Age heralded new patterns and processes by which material culture circulated through plunder, trade and exchange, but also through imitation, influence and adaptation. The theme of citation draws upon research into the agency and the social and mnemonic affects of material culture and monuments in instigating social change. Citation provides a useful pivot around which to consider the active reconfiguring and vocation of previous landscapes, monuments and material culture in the creation of new social and religious worlds by Viking-period communities and individuals. There are a number of reasons for adopting the original theme of citation, as an alternative to considering the cultural biography of things, monuments and landscapes, which is otherwise often investigated when approaching the phenomenon of re-contextualization. Citation helps us to think of the active roles of enmeshed networks of people and things in the emergence of creolizing cultures of the Viking Age. This network-based approach has numerous advantages in understanding socio-economic, political and religious change. Through networks linking together the Viking world, citations provided a distinctive medium for social communication, identity-creation and commemoration including how things and places were imitated, adapted, reinvented, depicted, denoted, displayed, combined, fragmented, recycled and/or deposited alongside the biographical emphasis upon curation and reuse. Thus, exploring citational strategies equips archaeologists with the conceptual tools to adequately understand the shifting and not always linear linkages between different artefact types and assemblages in the construction of identities and memories in the Viking world.

In about AD 1140, the island of Gotland initiated what was to become one of the most influential coinages of the medieval Baltic Sea area. This was part of a strategy to meet the impact and pressure from the world outside in a period characterised by large-scale political and ideological changes. In this situation, old and new networks were important to maintain autonomy from those aiming for dominance over the island. The coins, with an independent weight standard and an iconography inspired by NW German and Frisian coins, were one way of attracting partners to the island’s main harbour, where its inhabitants could maintain control and trading peace.

Coins incorporate in them the dimensions of object, text and picture. A historical archaeology of coins needs not only focus on large-scale perspectives and formal power, but must also give weight to the archaeological context, the life biography of the coins and the social negotiations behind their production and use. Thus intention and reality, symbolism and social practice may be studied to find openings to the stories behind the objects. The different dimensions of the coins together with historical sources give away plenty of information on several levels: about the networks, ideological framework, artisanship and changing loyalties of this time and area.

The present-day small village of Roma on Gotland in the Baltic Sea was the physical and symbolic centre of the island in the Iron Age and into Medieval times. The Cistercian monastery and the meeting place of the island’s assembly, the All-thing, two well-known features of medieval Roma, have often been taken as indications of an egalitarian and non-stratified society on Gotland during the Viking Age and Middle Ages. It is here proposed, however, that an older Iron Age cult site at Roma eventually came under the control of a chieftain or major landowner who introduced Christianity, founded a monastery and inaugurated the thing in Roma in Viking or early medieval times, just as his equals did elsewhere in Scandinavia. While the later medieval thing was probably located near the monastery, an alternative site on a small island is suggested for the older All-thing.

Botulf – Saint or Free Mover? (summary)

“For Botulf ”. A cryptic inscription on a series of Gotlandic coins from c. 1210 is discussed in this article in relation to different types of references to the name Botulf on Gotland. Gravestones, farmsteads, mural paintings, toll lists and numismatic evidence all provide clues as to what or whom the inscription may be alluding to. Was Botulf, the English saint, popular on Gotland to the point of having dedication coins minted in his honour? Or was Botulf, the Gotlandic tradesman, taking advantage of a temporary change of powers on the island to gain a reputation for himself? Enigmatic and fortified Västergarn on Gotland’s west coast, the German Bishop Albert’s Riga, and the Hanseatic Steelyard of London all play roles in the story of Botulf of Gotland.

The Gotlandic picture stone monuments of the oldest type constitute a material manifestation of a “concept” which basically deals with world order and balance, from the single picture to the monument as a whole. This concept is detectable in myths, sagas and material culture alike. Only by paying more attention to the female agents of the sagas it is possible to reach an understanding of the common content of ideas between the different expressions. That the elements play an important role in the sagas is reflected in the setting and execution of monuments and artefacts.

De tidigaste gotländska myntgrupperna präglades ca 1140-1288 och återfinns främst arkeologiskt, som fyndmynt. Många stora depåer (skatter) hittades för länge sedan och är också sedan länge skingrade, nedsmälta eller uppsplittrade på olika offentliga och privata samlingar. Detta är ett stort problem för den som vill forska med utgångspunkt från fynden, men det tidiga antikvariska intresset i Sverige gjorde ändå att en hel del mynt och information kom att tillvaratas av staten och av enskilda samlare och forskare.

Dessa stora depåfynd och tidiga samlingar har utgjort grunden för den svenska numismatiska forskningen och de standardverk vi använder oss av idag. Genom att studera dem kan vi, med lite tur, i många fall hitta ledtrådar till fyndinnehåll och andra uppgifter kring de tidiga fynden, vilka annars gått förlorade. I denna artikel utgår jag från det mest kända av de tidiga verken över Sveriges mynthistoria; Elias Brenners stora numismatiska verk "Thesaurus Nummorum Sveo-Gothicorum", som publicerades första gången år 1691.

År 1932 gjordes ett mynt fynd i Bårarp, Halland, som kunde dateras till ca 1153-55 (mynt från Svend Grate) (Jensen 1983). Med utgångspunkt från detta fynd kunde en serie gotländska 1100-talsmynt 25 år senare tidfästas vilket blev en viktig hållpunkt i arbetet med den gotlåndksa myntningen.