Viking-Age Trade: Silver, Slaves and Gotland

Routledge Archaeologies of the Viking World, 2021

That there was an in!ux of silver dirhams from the Muslim world into eastern and northern Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries is well known, as is the fact that the largest concentration of hoards is on the Baltic island of Gotland. Recent discoveries have shown that dirhams were reaching the British Isles, too. What brought the dirhams to northern Europe in such large numbers? The fur trade has been proposed as one driver for transactions, but the slave trade offers another – complementary – explanation. This volume does not offer a comprehensive delineation of the hoard finds, or a full answer to the question of what brought the silver north. But it highlights the trade in slaves as driving exchanges on a trans-continental scale. By their very nature, the nexuses were complex, mutable and unclear even to contemporaries, and they have eluded modern scholarship. Contributions to this volume shed light on processes and key places: the mints of Central Asia; the chronology of the in!ows of dirhams to Rus and northern Europe; the reasons why silver was deposited in the ground and why so much ended up on Gotland; the functioning of networks – perhaps comparable to the twenty-first-century drug trade; slave- trading in the British Isles; and the stimulus and additional networks that the Vikings brought into play. This combination of general surveys, presentations of fresh evidence and regional case studies sets Gotland and the early medieval slave trade in a firmer framework than has been available before.

Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (Virtual Meeting), 2020

Large-scale networks developed between Scandinavia and the Near East during the Late Iron Age, emerging and intensifying between 700 and 900 CE. These networks brought small artifacts of glass, stone, and silver into Scandinavia. According to textual sources, they also carried large numbers of slaves in the opposite direction. This slave trade poses particular problems for archaeological research. To what extent did the slave trade to and through Scandinavia leave an archaeological trace? Can impacts of the slave trade be seen in Viking-Age cemeteries and graves, settlements and structures, or across regional landscapes? Should archaeologists restrict their discussions of slavery to situations in which slave presence can be confirmed, or should they consider ways in which slavery and the slave trade indirectly shaped societies at different levels of interaction? In this paper, I offer an approach for studying the slave trade through a combination of textual indicators and material markers. Patterns in textual accounts of the early Viking-Age slave trade correspond to patterns in the archaeological record. These patterns challenge archaeologists to give increased attention to roles that slaves played in creating the archaeological record—through their value as local and long-distance trade goods, through their potential for resistance or flight from slave markets, through their unwilling presence on ships and along maritime routes. Scholarly consensus affirms that the movement of slaves played a significant role in long-distance communications and connections. Archaeological interpretations should reflect this as well. Cite as: Matthew C. Delvaux, “Networks of the Viking- Age Slave Trade in Archaeology and Text” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, Virtual Meeting, August 27, 2020).

2008

In my previous thesis I wrote about what features that characterize the Hiberno-Norse identity in Ireland during the Viking Age/Early Medieval period and the origin of these features. I also discussed whether they are to be viewed as a creolized Scandinavian society or as a hybrid culture with focus on said features. In this thesis I will attempt to shift the focus towards 9th and 10th century Gotland. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if there were some connections between the Hiberno-Norse world and Gotland. I will focus on one particular hypothesis regarding the early import of Islamic dirhams, particularly Samanid silver to Ireland. The idea is to examine if a trading network might have existed and, in essence, to establish that there were connections between the Hiberno-Norse world and Gotland.

In: Kitzler Åhfeldt L., Hedenstierna-Jonson C. Widerström, P & Raffield, B. (eds.) ,RELATIONS AND RUNES The Baltic Islands and Their Interactions During the Late Iron Age and Early Middle Ages, pp. 49-64 , 2020

2018

The Introduction sets out the scope and aims of the book, and explains how it departs from earlier publications dealing with similar themes. It then discusses the four themes around which the fourteen chapters are structured: the monetary and quasi-monetary functions of silver; the role of precious metals in primarily non-monetary (i.e. social and ritual) contexts; the sources of silver as assessed through archaeometric methods; and the monetary role of non-silver currencies, namely gold, cloth, and butter. The processes by which non-silver currencies were given value as currency are considered, alongside the social implications of the large-scale production of such currencies, particularly with respect to women's economic agency. New economic and social practices led to profound changes in the use of monetary media in the Scandinavian world of the Viking Age (c.AD 800-1100). While the early Viking Age was dominated by a 'display' economy, based on the public show of silver wealth, the ninth century witnessed the increasing use of silver as a means of exchange, rst as bullion and then as coin. Such changes elucidate the nature of payment and exchange in a society characterized by growth in long-distance networks and market centres, but they also provide a framework for studying social relationships and concepts of wealth and value broadly de ned. This book examines the use of silver and other commodities (gold, butter, cloth) to explore the nature and complexity of Viking economic systems during this age of change. It aims to deepen understanding of contemporary economic practices and to advance new de nitions of wealth, value, and money in the ninth to twelfth centuries. The current book builds on the publication of two earlier volumes (Graham-Campbell & Williams 2007; Graham-Campbell, Sindbaek, & Williams 2011), both of which focused on developments in the use of silver in Viking Age Scandinavia. Together with the publication of the important silver and weight assemblage from Kaupang, Norway (Skre 2008c), these works demonstrated the existence of multiple, overlapping forms of silver economy, some characterized by commercial exchange and others by primarily social or ritualistic practices. They have been highly in uential, revealing the pivotal role played by emerging urban communities in the development of the bullion (weighed silver) economy and demonstrating beyond doubt that silver was used in sophisticated transactions before the widespread circulation of coinage (for reviews,

In Bogucki, Mateusz (eds): "Economies, Monetisation and Society in West Slavic Lands 800-1200 AD", pp. 75-87. Szczecin 2013

Slaving was a prominent activity among raiding and mercantile groups operating across the early medieval world during the Viking Age (c. 750–1050 CE). Historical sources provide explicit descriptions of widespread raiding and slave taking by Viking raiders, as well as a substantial trade in captive peoples. Archaeologists, however, have long-struggled to identify evidence for the transportation and sale of captives in the material record. In order to begin addressing this issue, this study explores the comparative archaeologies and histories of slave markets in order to examine the potential form and function of these sites, and how they might have operated as part of the wider, interconnected Viking world.

2018

The Viking bullion economy is often characterized as a silver economy, based on the weight and neness of silver objects, regardless of their form. In this chapter, new archaeological evidence from England is presented which suggests that gold objects had a greater monetary role than has previously been appreciated. The material consists of tested gold ingots, hack-gold, and weight-adjusted gold ornaments, found in areas of documented Scandinavian activity and settlement. The date of the items suggests that most belong to the ninth century. A case is made for linking the monetary use of gold with the contemporary activity of the Viking Great Army and their heightened gold resources following Viking raids in western Europe. The mounting evidence for gold bullion highlights the diverse material forms 'money' could take in the Viking Age, providing a more rounded and accurate view of Viking Age exchange. It is widely accepted that gold and silver were used in di erent ways in Scandinavia and the Scandinavian territories during the Viking Age (c.AD 800-1100). Whereas silver had a uid and versatile role, as a means of display, wealth storage and medium of payment, gold, it is conventionally argued, functioned mainly as prestige jewellery, to be gifted, worn in public demonstrations of wealth and power, and, sometimes, sacri ced (Hårdh 1996; Graham-Campbell 2011a). In this chapter, I o er a di erent perspective, highlighting archaeological evidence for the potentially monetary use of gold in Scandinavian England from the late ninth to early eleventh century. In doing so, I aim to further understanding of the diverse material forms 'money' could take in this period, to provide a more rounded and accurate view of Viking Age exchange. There are two compelling reasons why the monetary role of gold in particular deserves new investigation. First, the late Mark Blackburn demonstrated that gold was more available in northern Europe in the ninth century than in the centuries immediately before or after, and it is worthwhile to consider whether this