Viking Trading or Raiding?

[Puffin]

http://archaeology.org/issues/175-1505/ ... amic-coins

Last year, the discovery of an ax head on a mountaintop overlooking Norway’s Trondheim Fjord led archaeologists to a tenth-century Viking grave. Though they found no remains, the team recovered a sword and a shield boss. The discovery seemed routine, until the boss was X-rayed. “We could see there was stuff in there,” says archaeologist Ingrid Ystgaard of the Norwegian University Science and Technology’s Museum of Natural History and Archaeology. It turned out to contain a leather purse holding Islamic silver coins that were minted in what is now Iraq, along with agates and a small lead weight. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Ystgaard. “It’s extremely rare to find coins in Viking burials, and so far as I know, none have ever been found in a shield boss.”

[Tony Miller]

Thanks for that interesting read.