Northumbryjska styca Æthelreda II z Janowa Pomorskiego

• Authors: Mateusz Bogucki

Title variants

EN

A Northumbrian styca of Æthelred II from Janów Pomorski (ancient Truso) in Poland

Abstracts

EN

Since 1982 extensive excavations have been held in the Viking Age emporium at Janów Pomorski on the south coast of the Baltic Sea, near the town of Elbląg. The site is most probably the well known historical Truso, described by Wulfstan around 880 A.D. Up to 2007, among c. 1000 dirhams, only nine western European coins have been found there, i.e. one Wodan/ monster sceat, four Danish coins of KG 3 and KG 5 types, two XPISTIANA RELIGIO deniers of Louis the Pious and one penny of King /Ethelwulf of Wessex, struck in Rochester. The latest western European coin found at Truso is a Northumbrian styca of £thelred II. The coin was found in August 2007 in the “harbour” area, in the ploughed soil. The styca from Truso belongs to a very popular series of £thelred II’s coins struck by moneyer Leofthagn. Nine die-identical specimens are known. Three coins have been found in a hoard at Saint Leonard's Place in York in 1843. Two specimens constituted a part of a hoard from Bolton Percy, North Yorkshire. Two others come from the biggest hoard of stycas, discovered in Hexham, Northumberland. Additionally, two other coins of uncertain provenance are known (Leeds City Museum, National Museum in Copenhagen). During the eight and the ninth centuries only a small number of western European coins arrived at the coast of the Baltic Sea. Those are mostly Carolingian deniers, Anglo-Saxon pennies and Frisian sceattas. The finds of Northumbrian stycas here are truly exceptional. Outside the British Isles, only 17 specimens have been recorded. Four of them were found in Frisia: three, struck by Eanred around 810-840 AD., come from the Dorestad emporium; the fourth, struck by Wigmund in the years 837-854, has been found at Schouwen. Two other stycas have been found in the basin of the river Rhine: Eanred's coin has been found in Mainz; another one in Zutphen. Two further coins, still unpublished, have been found in Menzlin. Seven stycas have been found in Scandinavia. Two of them, struck by Eanred, were mounted on lead weights; they were discovered in a warrior's grave in the Norwegian Vig, Fjaere. A third such styca has been recently found in Norway in Hjelle, Sogn og Fjordane. Two more specimens were discovered in southern Denmark: one in the harbour of Hedeby, another in the settlement of Schuby. Both were struck during the reign of Eanred. Two £thelred II stycas have been found in graves number 29 and 176 in Birka in Sweden. So far, the eastern-most find of such a kind has been recorded in Staraia Ladoga in northern Russia. Returning to the styca found in Truso, it has to be emphasized that, unlike other European coins from this site, it has not been re-made into a piece of jewellery. That can be explained by the fact that it is a bronze coin, not silver. That this styca was kept in its original form can be of significance in the explanation of the function of other European coins deprived of their monetary character. So it is very likely that this coin was brought to Truso by tradesmen who regarded it as a means of payment. There it was lost or rejected in trade. Other silver pennies might have been re-made into jewellery already in Scandinavia; it is therefore difficult to say whether they were brought here to function also as money, or exclusively as jewellery. However the bronze styca shows that European coins could have been brought to the southern coasts of the Baltic Sea to function as means of payment, and only there might they have lost their monetary function. As to the area from which the styca could have been brought to Truso, the most likely source is Denmark, and especially southern Jutland with its main settlements in Ribe and Hedeby. Those settlements were involved in the trade between the British Isles and other parts of Europe. This, and the well known fact of the journey undertaken by Wulfstan to Truso around 880, show that the ties between Truso and southern Jutland were strong. The chronological correspondence of the styca with another Anglo-Saxon coin, a penny of £thelwulf struck between 842 and 845 AD, is notable. Only a little bit older are four Danish coins and two deniers of Louis the Pious. The Wodan/monster sceat, almost a century older, is exceptional. Still, such chronological coherence of European coins from various countries proves that the contacts between Truso and Western Europe were established in the second quarter of the ninth century through Danish tradesmen. It is impossible to determine, however, whether those artefacts are merely "souvenirs from England", as R. Wiechmann described them, or evidence of lasting ties between the Elbląg Heights, southern Jutland and the British Isles in the ninth century AD. The comparison of coins with other artefacts from Truso suggests that the latter possibility is the more likely. The West-Saxon penny and the Northumbrian styca are among the latest coins found at Truso. Today it is still uncertain, despite the publication of many theories, what caused the cessation of coin usage in Truso after the mid-ninth century, at a time when long-distance trade contacts were still alive. (10 figures).

Keywords

EN

Æthelred II; Janów Pomorski; Leofthang; styca; Truso

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk
• Journal: Wiadomości Numizmatyczne
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 52
• Issue: 1(185)
• Pages: 34-41

Dates

published

2008

Contributors

author

Mateusz Bogucki

• Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk, al. Solidarności 105, 00-140 Warszawa, Poland

Identifiers

Biblioteka Nauki

16530153