Excavations at Helgö X: Coins, Iron and Gold 9174021672, 9789174021677

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Excavations at Helgö X Coins, Iron and Gold

Excavations at Helgö X Coins, Iron and Gold Bengt E. Hovén Ola Kyhlberg Brita Maimer Pär Hallinder Hanne Flyge J0rn Randrup W. A . Oddy V. E. G. Meyer N. D. Meeks

KUNGLIGA VITTERHETS HISTORIE OCH ANTIKVITETS AKADEMIEN STOCKHOLM Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm

Editors: Agneta Lundström and Helen Clarke Published with grants from the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and the Social Sciences and the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Fund

© Respective Author 1986 Printed in Sweden 1986 by Borgströms Tryckeri AB, Motala

Contents

Preface

5

Bengt E. Hovén, The Sasanian and Islamic Coins ............................................. Short numismatic excursus about the more noteworthy coins in the collection described above ........................................................................... Bibliography................................................................................................... Table ..............................................................................................................

7 9 10 11

Ola Kyhlberg, Late Roman and Byzantine Solidi, An archaeological analysis of coins and hoards .................................................................................. 13 1. The Socio-Economic Background of the Solidi ...................................... 13 2. The Solidi ................................................................................................... 26 3. The Solidi Hoards ...................................................................................... 42 4. Methodological Studies of Solidi Hoards ................................................ 50 5. Kolben Armlets ........................................................................................ 66 6. Plates .......................................................................................................... 74 7. Catalogue ................................................................................................... 102 8. Abbreviations ............................................................................................ 121 9. References ................................................................................................. 121 Brita Maimer. West European Silver Coins at H elg ö .......................................... 127 Pär Hallinder, Hanne Flyge and J0rn Randrup, The Iron Slag from Helgö —An archaeological and scientific study ............................................................. 1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 2. Iron Slag: An Orientation ......................................................................... 3. The Value of Iron Slag as a Source of Evidence .................................... 4. A Survey of the Material .......................................................................... 5. Comparative A nalysis............................................................................... 6. Scientific Analyses of Iron Slag ................................................................ 7. Archaeological and Scientific Grouping of the Analyses: A Comparison ........................................................................................... 8. Iron Slag and Iron Working at H elgö...................................................... References ......................................................................................................

131 131 131 133 133 137 140 145 146 150

W. A. Oddy and V. E. G. Meyer, The Analysis of the Gold Finds from Helgö and their Relationships to other Early Medieval Gold ........................... 153 1. Introduction .............................................................................................. 153

2. Methods of Analysis ................................................................................. 3. The Analysis Results ................................................................................ 4. Conclusions ............................................................................................... Bibliography................................................................................................... Tables ............................................................................................................. Appendix I by N. D. Meeks and W. A. O d d y ............................................. Appendix II by W. A. Oddy and N. D. M eeks............................................

Hovén et al. 1986. Coins. Iron and Gold. Excavations at Helgö X , pp. V1II + 178. ISBN 917402-167-2. Excavations at Helgö X contains articles concerning the coins found at Helgö: the solidi, the Westeuropean and the Arabic silvercoins. The volume also includes special articles concerning two other important groups in the Helgö material: the gold objects and the iron slag. The article on the solidi is not purely numismatic in character but is rather an archaeological analysis of the numismatic sources. The study includes a socio-economic framework to the coin hoards. It also deals with technical, chemical and numismatic aspects as well as it presents a new methodological approach to the analysis and interpretation of coin hoards. The West­ european silver coins as well as the Arabic coins have been determined and commented on by Brita Maimer and Bengt Hovén respectively. In the article of Oddy and Meyers the Helgö gold finds have provided the stimulus for a gen­ eral program of analyses of gold from Sweden from the 3rd to the 8th centuries with a view to determining whether the composition of the gold was subject to any debasement. The analyses have shown that there was a progressive use of an increasingly wide range of gold alloys for jewellery in Sweden from the third/fourth centuries when most items contained more than 85 % gold through the sixth when alloys as low as 34 % gold were in contemporary use with fine alloys. The study of the slag material has shown that it was of key importance for the scientific inves­ tigation and interpretation of the ironworking practised in the smithies of Helgö. Slag can indi­ cate the steps involved in ironworking and give some idea of the technical knowledge possessed by the smiths. The different types of slag can also elucidate the role of iron in local and distance trade. The study deals with slag from Building Group 3, but distinct similarities in the slag from different building groups are quite evident.

Kungi. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Villagatan 3 , S-l 14 32 Stockholm, Swe­ den

154 155 160 160 161 174 176

Preface

The archaeological excavations at Helgö ended in 1978 after twenty-six years of field work. Studies of the very large number of finds from Building Group 2 and Cemetery 150 have already been published in Excavations at Helgö / - / / / and V. Some of the finds from Building Group 3 (the metal workshops) appeared in Excavations at Helgö IV. Some of the results of the interdisciplinary project "Structure and change in Swedish society during the first millenium A.D. with special consideration of the situa­ tion in central Sweden". (SOFSS) which was carried out from 1969 to 1975 with the help of the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Fund are published in Excavations at Helgö VI. Excavations at Helgö VII assembles research on several groups of finds, mainly from Building Group 3 (the metal workshops). It contains a survey of all the glass so far found, including discussions of the glass previously published by Holmqvist in Excavation at Helgö II to­ gether with a catalogue of all the glass found in Building Group 3. There is also a catalogue and discussion of the pottery from Building Groups 1, 3, 4, 5 and a section on the clay tuyères found in the workshops. The final categ­ ory of finds included here is the iron from Building Group 3. All the iron objects are catalogued and the iron tools discussed in detail individually separately. The iron slag from the area is published in this volume. Excavations at Helgö VIII is primarily concerned with the function of Helgö and its spatial and chronological extent. The discussions are in the form of a synthesis based on results of many specialist investigations, such as radiocarbon dating and the new survey of the ancient monuments of Helgö carried out in 1979 by the Docu­ mentation Section of the Survey of Ancient Monuments, Central Board of National Antiquities. The latter is pub­ lished here along with a review of the ancient monuments in Helgö's hinterland. The papers cannot, of course, give any definitive solution to the problem of Helgö's func­ tion. nor to that of its chronological and spatial extent. They are intended as contributions to a continuing dis­ cussion. Helgö IX includes important documentation of archae­ ological finds from foundation 3, the metal workshops.

This volume deals with two important find groups— gold and iron as well as with the silvercoins found. Both gold and iron play a decisive part in the discus­ sions on trade and craftsmanship at Helgö. For this reason it is a pleasure to be able to present important contribu­ tions to this discussion by national and international specialists. The cataloguing of this material and research on it have been financed by the Swedish Humanities Research Council, the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Fund and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. The work was carried out mainly between 1967 and 1977. The appearance of this volume means that large parts of the comprehensive plan for the publishing of features and finds from Helgö are complete. However, important sections, such as the remaining mould material and Build­ ing Group 1, still remain unpublished. As the result of a new work situation, it is no longer possible for me to undertake responsibility for the pub­ lishing of the Helgö material. I hope that this important publishing task will be completed in the not too distant fu­ ture. In this connection I would like to thank Olov Isaksson, Director of the Museum of National Antiquities in Stock­ holm, for making it possible for me to carry out the plan­ ning of this publication project, while holding my posi­ tion in the research as well as in the exhibition depart­ ment at the museum. I would also like to thank Inger Sjöö of the museum department for her helpful and skill­ ful cooperation in the sharing of my editorial work. The editorial board of the Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities has provided invaluable help in seeing this volume through press. Helen Clarke of University Col­ lege, London, has been responsible for the translation. She is also editor of this volume. Costs of printing have been generously defrayed by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Fund and the Swedish Humanistic Research Council.

Stockholm, October 1985 Agneta Lundström

The Sasanian and Islamic Coins by Bengt E. Hovén

The 50 oriental coins discovered on Helgö, Ekerö parish, were found on the following sites. Building Group 1: two coins (no. 3 and no. 50 in the catalogue). One is Sasanian and one Islamic, both are so fragmentary that they cannot be more precisely identified although the former must have been minted before a .d . 651 when the last Sasanian king was murdered. The lat­ ter's mint mark is so defaced that no trace remains. Building Group 2: thirteen coins (nos. 1,2,11,14,15,19, 29, 31,32, 36, 42, 43, 47). Two are Sasanian. No. 1 was struck under the king Khusraw II who reigned a .d . 590628; it was minted in the town of Marw in the present Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan, shown by the mint marks on the right-hand side of the reverse. The date of minting is given on coins of this king but here it has been clipped off, so that it is not possible to attribute the coin more closely than to the reign. No. 2 is from an indeter­ minable great king; because it is a fragment both the place and date are missing and the attribution must be re­ stricted to saying that it was struck before a .d . 651 for the reason given above. The third coin (no. 11) was struck during the Umayyad dynasty. It also is a fragment, with the place of minting missing. As the caliphs of this dynasty did not put their names on their coins and as only the century A. H. is preserved the coin cannot be attri­ buted more precisely than to a .d . 718-49 where the former year gives the beginning of the century A. H. and the latter the cessation of Umayyad minting through the overthrow of the dynasty. The fourth coin (no. 14) was struck under the cAbbāsid caliph al-Mahdī in a .d 777/8 (the Islamic year which comprises only 354/5 days very often stretches over the end of one Christian year and the beginning of the next) in al-cAbbāsiyyah, situated in pre­ sent-day Tunisia. The fifth (no. 15) was minted under the same caliph a .d . 783/4 but it is a fragment with the place of minting missing. The sixth coin (no. 19) was minted under the cAbbâsid caliph al-Ma’mūn in the capital Madīnat al-Salām, modern Baghdad in Iraq; it is a frag­ ment with the year clipped off, so it must be attributed to the caliph's reign, a .d 813-33. The seventh coin (no. 29) is a fragment struck under an unidentifiable cAbbāsid caliph in (Madīnat al)-Salām (the words in parenthesis have been clipped off and are supplied); the figure ‘eight’

is all that remains of the year so it cannot be attributed any more precisely than to a .d . 765-833, the former year being the beginning of cAbbāsid minting in that town and the latter being the year when these coins acquired a dif­ ferent appearance with two circumscriptions on the ob­ verse; the coin in question does not have this. The eighth coin (no. 31), a fragment, was struck in al-Shāsh=Tasjkent in the modern Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan; the name of the caliph has been clipped off completely and only the ‘two’ of the year is visible, but as the obverse has two circumscriptions the coin must be a .d . 846-86, mak­ ing it the latest oriental coin, not only from the Building Group but also from all the 50 examples. So caution should be exercised and it should be placed in the first half of the proposed period. The ninth coin (no. 32), a fragment, was struck in Madīnat Zaranj—the city of Zaranj—situated near the point where the borders of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan all meet. The name of the caliph and the year have both been entirely clipped off. The tenth coin (no. 36) is a fragment with the name of the caliph, the year and the place of minting all clipped off— only the epithet ‘madīnah’ (city) remains—and it can only be attributed to the years a .d . 762-833 because it has no circumscription on the obverse. The eleventh and twelfth coins (nos. 42 and 43), both fragments, also lack the name of the caliph, the date, and the place of minting, but they are both well-known cAbbāsid types from a .d . 749-833. Nothing can be said about the thirteenth coin (no. 47) because its mint markings are obliterated. So the oriental coins from Building Group 2 fall into the period between a .d . 590 and a .d . 886, with a reservation about the latest years because of the caution noted above. Building Group 3 revealed four oriental coins, the first (no. 16) being struck under the cAbbāsid caliph al-Rashīd in Madīnat Zaranj (see above); as the coin is a fragment with the year clipped off it can only be attributed to the said caliph’s reign, a .d . 786-809. The second coin (no. 22) was struck under the cAbbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil calā llāh, in a .d . 845/5 in Madīnat Māh al-Kūfah (Dînawar in west Iran). The third and fourth coins (nos. 34 and 35) have had the caliph’s name, year and place of minting clipped away, apart from the epithet ‘madīnah’. As they have only one circumscription on the obverse they must

8

Bengl E. Hovén

have been struck between a .d . 762 and a .d . 833. Con­ sequently, the oriental coins in Building Group 3 can be assigned to the period between a .d . 762 and a .d . 855. The hoard from Cemetery 116 contained 23 oriental coins (nos. 8,9, 10. 12, 13, 17. 18,20,21,23,24,26,28,30,33, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 45 and 49) which could be split up as follows. The earliest (no. 8), a fragment, was struck in Wäsit (situated in lower Iraq between the Euphrates and the Tigris) under an Umayyad caliph. As the year has been clipped off it can only be attributed to the time when the caliphs of this dynasty were using Wäsit (founded as a town in a .d . 703) as a mint, von Zambaur (1968, p. 268) suggests that this was a .d . 703-49. Then there is another fragment (no. 9) of which only the number ‘nine' of the year remains. Despite this, and the fact that the name of the mint has been clipped off the coin can be attributed to some year (e.g, every tenth) from a .d . 698-747 i.e. after the Umayyad currency reform of a .d . 698. The third and fourth coins (nos. 10 and 12), also fragments, show only the word 'hundred' of the date and they can be attributed to a . d . 718-49 for the same reason as no. 11. The place of minting on each coin has been clipped off. The fifth coin (no. 13)—a fragment—was struck under the cAbbāsid caliph al-Saffah in a .d . 750/1, but the name of the mint has been clipped off. The sixth coin (no. 17) is a fragment struck under the cAbbāsid caliph al-Ma’mūn in the town of Isbahān (Isfahān), central Iran in a .d 820/1. The seventh coin (no. 18) is complete and was minted under the cAbbāsid caliph al-Ma’mūn in Madīnat al-Salām (Baghdad) in a .d . 820/1 ; this coin is remarkable because of its light weight, only c. 1.00 g about a third of the aver­ age weight of a dirhem. The words ‘hādhā al-dirham’ (i.e. this dirham) are missing in the obverse circumscription. This coin has not previously been published. The eighth coin (no. 20)—preserved complete—was struck under the cAbbāsid caliph al-Muctasim billāh in Fan's (the pro­ vince in southern Iran which gave its name to Persia) in a .d . 835/6. This coin is also remarkable for, as far as I know, no catalogues or other sources have given the in­ formation that a coin was struck there in that year. No similar coin is present in KMK’s collections, and there­ fore it is here published for the first time. The combina­ tion of place and year has hitherto been unseen, there was nothing remarkable about this type or the inscription. The ninth coin (no. 21)—a fragment—was struck under the 'Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil calā lläh in a .d . 850/1 in Madīnat al-Salām. The tenth coin (no. 23) is also com­ plete and was struck in Samarqand (in the present Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan) in a d . 858/9, under the lastnamed caliph. This is also true of the eleventh coin (no. 24) which is a fragment with the mint name clipped off. It was struck in a .d . 856/7. The remaining twelve coins in the

hoard are largely impossible to attribute to a specific caliph, because of their fragmentary character; but it is possible to date them within broad limits. The twelfth coin (no. 26) was struck in Madīnat Isbahān. The thir­ teenth (no. 28) was struck in Madīnat al-Salām during the period a .d . 770-829; only the number 'three' of the date is preserved. The fourteenth coin (no. 30) was struck in alMuhammadiyyah (a little south of Teheran). The fif­ teenth coin (no. 33) was struck in an indeterminable place (only the epithet 'madīnah' = 'city' is preserved) during the period a .d . 762-833. The sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth coins (nos. 37-40) have the term 'hundred' preserved and may therefore be attri­ buted to a .d . 749-815; the place of minting is preserved on none of them. The twentieth coin (no. 41) has no infor­ mation to contribute to a precise attribution but was struck a .d . 749-833. The twenty-first coin (no. 44) was minted under a cAbbāsid caliph after a .d . 833 as its ob­ verse carries two circumscriptions. It is impossible to give the last date for minting. The twenty-second coin (no. 45) is not a fragment; its obverse and reverse are struck with stamps whose engravings attribute it to quite different dates, dynasties or mints. In this case the obverse of the coin bears a stamp engraved with Wäsit (see above) as mint and the year 122 A. H. = a .d . 739/40, that is, during the reign of the Umayyad caliph Hishām; the reverse is engraved like a cAbbāsid coin of a .d . 749-833. It is impos­ sible to define the reverse more closely as both the place and year of minting ought to have appeared on the ob­ verse and the name of the caliph been visible. It is not possible to discover the dynasty of the twenty-third and last coin in the hoard from the Cemetery 116 (no. 49). Consequently the coins in the hoard represent the period from a .d . 703 to a .d . 859. An oriental fragment (no. 25) was discovered in an­ other grave in Cemetery 116. It was minted under an un­ identifiable cAbbāsid caliph in al-Basrah (southern Iraq) during the period a .d . 749-833. Yet another grave in the same cemetery produced an oriental fragment (no. 5) minted a .d . 812-18 in Khwärizm (a province on the southern shore of the Aral Sea) under the governor al-Fadl ibn Sahl ibn Zadhānfarūkh who was a vassal of th ecAbbāsid caliph al-Ma'mūn. This coin is re­ markable because it differs from the orthodox type with­ out picture which was prevalent in Islamic coinage after c. a .d . 698; it follows pre-Islamic tradition in depicting human beings and animals. The obverse carries a royal portrait with diadem with ribbon-ends, pendant neck­ covering and beaded necklet; on the reverse there is a rider with horse, above whose croupe is seen the Arabic title 'dhū al-ri'āsatayn' = the man with two commands'. On both sides there are circumscriptions in a Khwârazmian alphabet.

The Sasanian and Islamic Coins 9 There are 5 Islamic coins from Cemetery 118 (nos. 4, 6, 7, 27 and 46), distributed as follows. One so-called ArabSasanian or Tabaristān coin (no. 4) struck under the cAbbāsid caliph’s subordinate governor in Tabaristān (the province on the south coast of the Caspian), Sacid ibn Daclaj, carries the name of the province as place of mint­ ing and the year 125 P.Y.E. = a .d 776. The second coin with the third stuck to it (nos. 6-7), is an Umayyad coin (no. 6) struck in Wäsit, but as the date has been clipped off it cannot be more precisely attributed than to a .d . 70349 according to the above; the coin stuck to its reverse is a fragment of a cAbbāsid coin (no. 7) showing its reverse; according to the above it should have been minted a .d . 749-833. The fourth coin (no. 27) is a cAbbāsid coin struck in Mādinat al-Salàm (Baghdad) in a .d . 774/5; in this year (158 A.H.) the change in the caliphate took place, whereby caliph al-Mansūr was succeeded by caliph al-Mahdī; the latter was in the habit of putting his name on his coins but this does not seem to have been done con­ sistently so in the catalogue this coin is not attributed to any specific mint master. The fifth coin (no. 46) is a frag­ ment with almost obliterated inscription so an attribution would be much too vague. Thus the Islamic coins in Cemetery 118 span the period a .d 703-833. In addition there was a piece of metal broken into two fragments (no. 48) but without provenance, all traces of minting seeming to have disappeared. We might well wonder whether it was a minted coin, or a sheet of metal not intended as a means of exchange.

Short numismatic excursus about the more noteworthy coins in the collection described above Four of the 50 coins are remarkable enough to deserve more detailed discussion (nos. 4, 5, 18 and 45). No. 4 is so-called Arab-Sasanian or, more precisely, a Tabaristān coin; that is, a coin of Sasanian type but with a stylized royal portrait carrying plumed helmet and other decorations on the obverse, and with the gover­ nor's name Sacid in Arabic script on the right in place of the king's name in the Pahlavi alphabet which is charac­ teristic of true Sasanian coins. Around the edge there are two inscriptions in the Pahlavi alphabet which can be transliterated by AFD and NYWK; the first should be read as ‘afad' which usually means ‘wonderful' and the second as *newak' which is translated as—‘good’ (Gaube 1973 p. 131). On the reverse there is a fire altar with standing guards and on the right the name of the place of minting shown by TPWRST'N = Tabaristān. On the left

the year of minting stands as 125 PYE( = Post-Yazdagard Era) or a d . 776. (Walker 1941 p. 238) written in Pahlavi script, as is the name of the mint. This type of coin, whose prototype was the Sasanian examples which were no longer minted after the fall of the empire in a d 651, none the less continued for more than a hundred years, both among the subordinate governors of the caliphs and in certain inaccessible and peripheral parts of the Caliphate, particularly in the mountainous regions immediately south of the Caspian Sea. Such coins are described by Walker (op. cit., p. 140: ANS 19) and their inscriptions by Gaube (op. cit., pp. 123 ff.). No. 5 is a so-called Arab-Khwarazmian coin whose prototypes were the coins which were struck in Khwarazm immediately south of the Aral Sea with a royal portrait on the obverse and horse and rider on the reverse (see above) plus inscriptions on each face in the Khwarazmian alphabet—ultimately deriving from Aramaic—and in the Khwarazmian language, an Iranian language related to Sogdic and Ossetic (Frye 1949, pp. 17-18). The inscriptions are,well represented in VaTnberg (1977), with suggested readings in Frye (op. cit., pp. 2021), and first described in detail by Tolstov (1938) from more than 1,000 examples (Tolstov 1945). Whether the prototype was struck only before or also after the Arabs' invasion of Khwärazm under the Umayyads after a .d . 712 (Bosworth 1978, p. 1062) should be queried, but it is cer­ tain, on the basis of this coin, that coins mainly from this prototype but carrying a short inscription in Arabic, con­ tinued to be struck after the arrival of the Arabs. As men­ tioned above, this coin bore the Arabic title, ‘dhū alri’asatayn' = ‘the man with two commands' as does a similar coin found inTingstad parish, Östergötland, 1978 SHM-KMK 28832, (published in CNS 8:1:15:1 with a photograph on p. 134) where the inscription is clearer. Another Arab-Khwārazmian coin, found possibly in Lär­ bro parish, Gotland, 1906, SHM-KMK 12847 (Welin 1962, p. 159), is fragmentary like the other two so the in­ scription is obscure; Welin interprets it as dhū al-yaminayn' = ‘he who has two right hands’ (Welin op. cit., p. 167), the title used by Abū Tayyib Tāhir ibn al-Husayn, governor of Khorasān with his residence in Navsābūr a .d . 821-2 (he died a d 14/11 822 (de Zambaur 1927, p. 197)). ‘Dhū al-ri'āsatayn’, the title on coin in SHM-KMK 28832 and on the present example, was the title which the vizier al-Fadl ibn Sahl ibn cAbd Allāh al-Sarakhsï (de Zambaur op. cit., p. 6) and al-Fadl ibn Sahl ibn Zadhānfarūkh (Sourde! 1963, pp. 731-2) used from 812 to his death 13/2 818 (de Zambaur op. cit. p. 6). It follows that Welin’s suggested attribution (op. cit. p. 165) of Arab-Khwaraz­ mian coins with the name al-Fadl (e.g. Frye op. cit., p. 19 and Miles 1950, pp. 10-12) to the vizier mentioned here is more likely than the suggestion oihannakid al-Fadl ibn

10 Bengt E. Hoven Yahyä (opp. citt. ). If Welin's reading of the difficult frag­ ment SHM-KMK 12847 is correct (a find of another such coin but in better condition would give greater eertainty) this would suggest that two successive high officials of caliph al-Ma’mūn a .d . 813-33 were aceustomed to mint­ ing after pre-Islamie prototypes with a pictorial tradition, although 100 years after the coinage reform of ealiph cAbd al-Malik, even though in a peripheral part of the Caliphate. As a comparison it can be mentioned that the last-known Arab-Sasanian coins were struek a .d . 704/5, and the last Tabaristān coins were struck a .d . 794/5 (Gaube op. cit. pp. 76,125) with the exception of a single type struek in Tabaristān in a .d . 812 and carrying just the inscription ‘dhū al-ri’āsatayn’ (Walker op. cit. p. 160). No. 18, minted in Madīnat al-Salām in 205 A.H. ( a .d . 820/1) under caliph al-Ma’mfm, is a fraction (Vs) of a dirham; its weight is 1.00 g, about lh of the weight of the 'classic silver dirhams', 2.97g (Hinz 1955 p. 2) and its dia­ meter less. 16.7 mm. The circumscription on the obverse (the main inscription is the eommon one) also shows cer­ tain features which distinguish it from the usual °Abbāsid whole dirhams. It reads