Most of us think of Vikings pillaging some poor fishing village along the coast. We had the opportunity to seeing Viking life “After the Battle” at the JORVIK Viking center.
The JORVIK Viking Centre was on tour due to massive flooding in December 2015 (set to re-open by Spring 2017), so we went to a special exhibit in ‘York St. Mary’s at Coppergate.’ It allowed us to interact with the Norse residents (actors) face to face as they guided us through Viking culture.
VIKING TRADE
We talked with a Viking trader who showed us seal skin that was excellent for waterproofing, hard stone from Norway used to sharpen steel blades, amber from Russia, and a variety of glass beads, and metal implements. They even found 750,000 oyster shells in the archeological dig site of Coppergate. Vikings loved their seafood!
We also spoke with another Viking trader who showed us a Viking ship that was filled with pelts of Raindeer, Boar, and Sheepskin. Dried fish hung from the robes, Norwegian stone served as blast (and could later be sold for sharpening) and Hope noted the Deer and Moose antlers in the bow of the boat. They made combs out of the antlers and bones.
COIN MAKING
From there we spoke with the village coin maker. During 1980-81 two Viking-Age coin-dies were found at the York Archaeological trust’s famous Coppergate Excavation. They are the only two ever discovered anywhere in the Viking world.
A ‘die’ is the iron much used to stamp out the patter on one side of a coin. Two dies were needed for each coin, one showing the ‘head’ side and one showing the ‘tail.” A piece of silver was placed between them and a sharp hammer-blow created a coin. The two dies found at Coppergate were the ‘head’ side of two different coins, so your coin in fact has two ‘heads.’ One side of the Jorvik coin shows the ‘St Peter’s Penny.’ This was first struck under the Viking Kings of York (AD 910-920) and shows a cross, a sword and a hammer of Thor.
The other side comes from a penny of the Anglo-Saxon King Athelstan who drove the Vikings out of Northumbria. He proclaimed himself ‘King of all Britain’ (Athelstan REX to BRI) AD 927-938. These pennies were made of silver, but the coin we received one made of pewter, a replica made to match the pennies that changed hands in Viking Age York over a thousand years ago.
This activity really impressed our daughter Joy. Here is her account of the coin maker experience:
“Every coin maker had his own ‘tail’ die. Instead of the coin being worth an amount indicated on the coins they were worth their weight in silver. Every coin that they used was worth a month’s wages in silver, so if they wanted to buy a duck, and he didn’t want to spend all his months wage just one duck, then they would cut up their coin into different pieces. Just like in the USA, we have cents, their cents were just cutting up their coins. So one duck would be worth a ‘quarter’ of a coin.
But it wasn’t always just the coins. They also made silver bracelets that showed their wealth, and in a similar way, they would break off a piece of the bracelet. That piece would be worth one coin. Because they were used as bracelets and different jewelry like pendents (once they were small enough) they had different designs on the bracelets. The designs indicated where to cut it and each of them was equal to one months wage in silver.
Before the coin maker had their own ‘tail’ there was a generic die of the coin. That led to problems. The coin makers would make perfect coins for themselves and pocket them, and make lighter coins for the rest of the community. The lighter coins contained less sliver so they were not worth as much. Because this was becoming a problem, and so many coin makers were doing it, the king limited the amount of coin makers there were from 300 down to 12! But they were still pocketing coins for themselves and making bad coins for others. So every time they hired a new coin maker, they make a ‘tail’ with their name on it and where it was made. So if someone had a lightweight coin, they could look on the back of the coin, and find the person. So it was a lot of accountability. But if they were still making bad coins (or pocketing the good ones) the king would instruct someone to chop off one of their hands.
They could still use one hand to make coins but it was harder. They would nail the hand to the door showing the coin maker was cheating the community and the king. But if they did it again, instead of chopping off the other hand, the king would cut off their heads because they were a cheat!
The museum never found any ‘tails,’ but they found two ‘heads’. They never found any tails, either due to someone found them first, or lost, but most likely because every time they hired a new coin maker they would take the tails from the old coin maker. They would melt down the ‘tail’ and make a new ‘tail’ for the new coin maker. So that led to the rarity of finding any ‘tails.’
They had the replicas of the heads at the museum and you could pay to have your own viking coin made and we did that!”
VIKING HOMES
We also spent time speaking with a homemaker who instructed us about the workings of a Viking household including, weaving, cooking, home wall construction, grinding of grains and beer making.
Again, Joy’s account: “The men would go out and hunt or buy food but the women at home would have to do tons of work. The children would make the string out of wool using a drop spindle while the mom would take that and weave wool clothes or mats for the home.
Every girl from the age of seven would know how to cook. They had no refrigerator or anything to keep their food fresh, so everyday they would have to cook everything and eat everything they had made and wash out the cooking pot so it was ready for the next day. They would cook vegetables, eels, fish, duck or anything they had, hunted, grown or traded for. They would cook it and eat it all because they could not save any of it.
Their homes were very small and they had to make their walls out of willow branches and weave them together to make the wall and put bigger sticks between them to keep them in place within a frame.
Another household job was to grind grain in a super heavy stone mill to make flour for bread. A woman or child would sit there for 2-4 hours turning the mill from side to side. They have found skeletons of women who had toe and ankle stress and worn down bones because they had been doing this everyday. They didn’t pre-grind flour because they had no way to save it.”
They would use wheat and hops to make beer because that was the only safe thing to drink because the water was disgusting. The children would go out every day and get two barrels full of water and bring it back to the house to start making beer for the day. It was not super strong in alcohol so the children would drink it everyday.”
VIKING COSTUMES
Finally, we got a fun opportunity to dress up in Viking era clothes! Here are a few pictures of the family:
Writing by Ryan, Joy and Edited by Nicole
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