Swedish archaeologists found a rare and valuable golden coin from ancient Rome... at a site on the island of Öland that's been compared to Italy's Pompeii.[Photo: Museiarkeologi sydost]
Posted on 07/02/2015 9:31:58 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
A small team of archaeologists at Kalmar County museum, in collaboration with Lund University, has been digging at the site for the past three years. The team is studying the Migration Period in Scandinavian history, from about 400 to 550 AD...
While the team has found several hundred of the coin already, Monday's discovery was a big one, said archaeologist and project manager Helena Victor.
"This is the first one found in an archaeological context," she told The Local. "Normally we find them while we're plowing the field. But we found this one inside a house where we found people who'd been killed."
The object, a small golden coin also known as a solidus, is from the Roman Empire and may be an important puzzle piece in mapping the island's history.
"We think it may have been the reason for the massacre at the Sandby Borg fort. And this is the only coin that wasn't taken," she explained.
"We found it on the edge of a posthole in the house. So maybe the robbers came to take the treasure there, and maybe they ripped the bag and one coin fell down into the posthole in the floor, and there it remained."
While Victor refused to put a price value on the coin, she said it was maybe equivalent to a new Volvo car. The soldiers in the Roman Empire, she explained, earned approximately five of the coins per year, and likely worked for a few years and then brought their riches home.
"I think that the money was a good excuse to end a feud. So there was probably a feud, this was a very strong statement, not just a normal robbery- an excruciatingly evil statement to kill these people and just leave them," Victor explained.
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.se ...
Swedish archaeologists found a rare and valuable golden coin from ancient Rome... at a site on the island of Öland that's been compared to Italy's Pompeii.[Photo: Museiarkeologi sydost]
The guys you want to hire as mercenaries are the guys that raided a Viking stronghold and kicked ass.
Inner city Jutes!
Another quote from Victor FTA:
So to make a real statement you forbid them to burn the bodies.
***
She seems to be constructing a large narrative here, which is why I went to the article. It would be helpful if she would explain how she knows that someone forbade the burning of the bodies. Perhaps it is just bad reporting here.
The Varangians got their gig with the Byzantine emperor by riding up and hanging a shield on the gate. Other than that little misunderstanding with the assassination of one of the later Byz emperors, they were a huge asset to the empire.
LOL!
Yeah, that was quite a lot of the article overall, a real soapbox piece.
The massacre happened centuries before the Vikings.
Thanks Sawdring.
Just a ping message update.
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