These coins were found by the thousands in the North, e.g. in large treasure finds in Sweden. They have been a natural part of the silver economy in the large trade area of the Vikings.
The coins are “living” proof of how far these trade routes extended more than 1000 years ago. Many of the coins are from the area east of the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea, an area which is now called Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Northern Iran.
In the Viking Age people in Denmark had no idea what the strange symbols on the coins meant, but they were reasonably convinced that said coins were made of good silver. People have not always trusted the merchants who brought these coins to the markets, however, and that is why many of the coins sport so called proof marks, which are little scratches in the coins made to judge the silver’s density. The coins were also weighed to determine their value.
These coins were, along with other pieces of hack silver, the primary method of payment at the time.
