Long Table 137. The Hoarding Vikings: Hoards as Economic, Social, Cultural, and Symbolic Capital
Channel: American Numismatic Society
Date: 2023-05-15

During the Viking Age, silver hoards were created by people with different cultural, ethnic, social, and religious backgrounds. The hoarded objects were produced in many different parts of the world, and traveled far because of trade, raids, emigration, marriage, or diplomacy. Gitte Ingvardson, Curator at the Historical Museum at Lund University, investigates whether these choices reflect the people that deposited them, and asks if it is possible to identify the accumulation strategies of the hoards. Dr. Ingvardson will focus on the Viking age hoards of the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, where more than 100 Viking Age hoards were deposited between c. 850 – 1150. Extensive documentation from this relatively small island offers insight into not only the content of these hoards, but the archaeological context on an unprecedented scale.