The image of the Vikings often remains frozen: brutal looters from the north, sowing terror on the European coasts. However, new scientific analyzes nuances this reductive vision. A study led by Professor Jane Kershaw, of the University of Oxford, published in the journal Archaeometry, reveals that these Scandinavians were also traders inserted in large economic networks. The geochemical analysis of a treasure discovered in 2012 near Bedale, in Yorkshire, shows that almost a third of money comes from the Islamic world, in particular from current Iran and Iraq.
An ordinary archaeological discovery … for extraordinary content
The Bedale depot was uncovered in 2012, in a northern Yorkshire meadow, by two detection enthusiasts, Stuart Campbell and Steve Caswell. At first glance, this treasure, dated between the end of the ninth and the beginning of the 10th century, seemed comparable to other discoveries associated with the Viking occupation in England. It includes 29 silver ingots, several twisted necklaces, a golden sword knob and various fragments of jewelry. Its initial evaluation amounted to around $ 70,000 (51,636 pounds sterling), according to the Bbc.
But what makes this deposit exceptional is not its appearance or its market value, but the composition of its money. The recent geochemical study thus made it possible to analyze lead isotopes and the trace elements of each metal object.
The analyzes revealed that a majority of ingots came from the melting of Western coins (Anglo-Saxon or Carolingian). But almost a third of the ingots were made from Islamic dirhams, struck in the territories of the current Iran or the Iraq, then under the control of the Abbasid caliphate. This origin was confirmed thanks to the comparison with samples referenced by the British Geological Survey.
This observation is essential. He demonstrates that the money contained in this treasure has not only been looted locally. No, he has been imported since the Middle East. A questioning of the traditional interpretation of the role of Vikings in England as simple looters.
An economy of metal based on weight and transformation
Unlike the Anglo-Saxons, which used currencies struck according to a facial value, the Vikings adopted an economic system based on the weight of the metal. Silver was therefore circulating in the form of ingots, jewelry or cut metal fragments, called hacksilver. This model, says ” Bullion Economy “, Did not depend on monetary marking but therefore on the mass of money itself.
The Bedale Treasure offers a perfect example. No dirham was found as a whole room. All were melted and reused. “” Vikings did not use Islamic parts as currencies, but as a raw material “, Explain Jane Kershaw to Live science. Nine of the ingots have been geochemically paired with abbasid money. This means that they came from melted coins, then flowing into standardized objects for exchanges.
The study also shows that Vikings craftsmen, both in Scandinavia and in England, refined their metal locally. Some objects from the Bedale Treasury contain traces of lead from the Northern Pennines. The goldsmiths included regional materials to adjust or purify the foreign metal, explain the authors in a press release.
A particularly striking case concerns a large torque, made up of twisted stems and obviously manufactured in the north of England. It combines both Western money and oriental money. It proves an advanced metallurgical control and an ability to standardize alloys to meet commercial needs.
This mode of operation illustrates a flexible system. Islamic money was founded to integrate it into a practical economy, without consideration for its cultural origin.
The silver roads between Baghdad and northern England
How could the Caliphate Abbasside money be able to end up in an English meadow? To understand this, you must follow the commercial roads taken by the Varègues. These are the Eastern Vikings installed in Russia, real intermediaries between Northern Europe and the Islamic markets.
Abbasid dirhams were struck in cities like Baghdad, Samarcande or Nishapur. These parts then circulated north via the Russian river roads, including the Volga, to the Baltic. This network, known as Austrvegr, was borrowed by the Scandinavian merchants. They then traded furs, amber, honey, weapons or slaves against money.
“” Islamic money did not arrive in England directly from the Middle East, but via Scandinavia. He was transformed there and then swept away by the colonists “, Details Jane Kershaw. When they settled in regions like the Danelaw – Viking domination area in England – these colonists brought with them not only their culture, but also their precious metals already melted.
An economic rereading of the Viking phenomenon
The results of the study conducted on the Bedale treasure then encouraged to deeply rethink the economic role of the Vikings. Long perceived through the prism of violence-in particular raids on Anglo-Saxon monasteries-Scandinavians now appear as pragmatic traders with sophisticated economic know-how. The Vikings were not simple opportunistic pirates. We can now consider them as commercial players connected to transcontinental networks.
Admittedly, the looting existed and the rich wealth locally contributed to the Viking fortune. But this wealth was then melted, redistributed, recycled in a transregional exchange system, both monetary and artisanal. The use of metals of various origin, adaptation to a foreign economic context (Anglo-Saxon England) and integration into long distance circuits reveal a hybrid economic strategy.
As Jane Kershaw points out: ” The Vikings were not just predators. They knew how to capitalize on large -scale commercial opportunities, while adapting their practices to the conquered territories ». The Bedale Treasury is the demonstration that Scandinavians actively imported value, just as they extracted it.
The Viking economy was therefore not unilateral, but complex and multi-sources. She mixed booty, commerce, crafts and local adaptation. This reading also calls into question an artificial separation between war economy and market economy at that time.
Research actually opens a path to a finer understanding of medieval economic dynamisms. Cultural contacts, even between apparently opposed worlds as the Christian West and Islam, were the foundation of a real interconnected economy, much more advanced than we imagined so far.
Source: Kershaw, J., S. Merkel, et al., 2025. “ The Provenance of Silver in the Viking-Age Hoard from Bedale, North Yorkshire”. Archaeometry 1–21.
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