1000 year Byzantine coin found in Norway

[davidb]

Perhaps a member of the Varangian Guard brought it back?

https://greekreporter.com/2023/12/06/1000-year-old-byzantine-gold-coin-found-norway/

[Imperial Dave]

Wouldn't surprise me

[Erpingham]

This short article might be useful for context

https://nordictalesbyzantinepaths.ku.edu.tr/en/article/coins-t26

[Nick Harbud]

Payment for slaves sourced from Dublin and York, two of the largest slave markets in Europe during the Viking era.

Is it too late to ask for a formal apology and reparations from the Scandanavian states?

 

[Jim Webster]

Payment for slaves sourced from Dublin and York, two of the largest slave markets in Europe during the Viking era.

Is it too late to ask for a formal apology and reparations from the Scandanavian states?

 

One of the villages round here, Biggar, on the Island of Walney, was designed not to be seen from the sea. When I went round it in the 1960s there were still no houses with windows looking seaward. The village didn't show a light
Basically because of Barbary Pirates and slavers who operated off the coast.

[Erpingham]

I'm not sure it is from the slave trade.  The Vikings seem to have favoured silver coinage for transactions like that.  Gold pieces were rarer, perhaps more prestige stuff, not meant for spending as much as gifting and display.  Maybe.

[Nick Harbud]

Gosh!  You mean those specimens of ancestral prime Britannic flesh were not worth gold, but only such bits of silver small change that happened to be in the money purse?

And this is meant to make me feel better disposed towards the owner of this high-value coin?

[Erpingham]

You mean those specimens of ancestral prime Britannic flesh were not worth gold, but only such bits of silver small change that happened to be in the money purse?

Yes and no.  Yes to the small change but apparently in staggeringly large quantities. I'm sure it will make you feel better to know some of this Byzantine and Arab silver did make its way back to the Britannic shores but I suspect most of the profits were being made in slave markets in Scandinavia.