Medieval Coins Found In Jutland’s Field In Denmark

MessageToEagle.com – The remarkable discovery of 82 coins from 14th century civil war era, was made by the members of the Central Jutland Detector Society, Denmark.

The coin treasure was found in a field south of Foulum, some 8km from the city of Viborg, where archaeologists from the Viborg Museum have started an excavation.

The mediaeval coins, are thought to have been hidden during the first half of the 1300s, a period of internal unrest in Denmark which culminated in a temporary end of royal rule and collapse in ca 1330.

Experts say that the poor quality minting and low silver content of the coins are believed to reflect the 700-year-old Danish ‘Civil War’.

From 1241 to 1375, the coins, civil war coins (the name for a group of small substandard Danish coins from the Middle Ages) were minted increasingly imprecise and bad, and their silver content deteriorated continuously until they eventually largely consisted of cheap copper.

The great finds instances of civil war coins resulted especially during Erik Klipping (1259-86), Erik Menved (1286-1319) and Christoffer 2. (1320-26, 1329-32) suggests that the coin production may have amounted to millions of coins.

“The treasure comes from an unstable period, and it is conceivable that the owner wanted to hide them away until better and more stable times. For some unknown reason, he never returned to collect his coins,” Viborg Museum curator Mikkel Kjeldsen said.

The metal detector search was carried out on the field near the town of Foulum during the final stage of a wider excavation of an Iron Age building at the site. But with a 1,000-year age difference between the building and the coins, an explanation of how the treasure came to the area remains clouded by mystery.

“It is not unusual to find civil war coins when we investigate fields near Middle Age towns and villages, but when we find so many collected and hidden together, it really sets your mind at work thinking about who could have put them there, and why,” Morten Nielsen, chairperson of Central Jutland Detector Society and one of the finders of the coins, said.

The search with a metal detector of the area was made ​​at the end of a major excavation of a settlement from the early Iron Age on site.

However, there are nearly 1000 years between settlement from the Iron Age and decommissioning of the hoard, as the two have no connection.

The coins will be cleaned and put on display at Viborg Museum next week.

MessageToEagle.com 

source: The Local

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