Ribe is one of the biggest Danish towns near where my grandmother lives in Denmark.
I've been staying with her for the last 2 days, along with my mother and sister, while we're on holidays here in Denmark.
And today I was finally well enough that we could go visit the museum !!!
Have had a throat infection since Saturday, when we arrived in Denmark😑 so it's good to be able to enjoy my holiday a bit before going back Friday. (Said infection is also making me a bit slow, so that's why making one longform post on the visit is a bit too hard for me)
so, let's go a-viking, and get us some looot (albeit mostly in the form of knowledge).

Foto: Sydvestjyske Museer.

Foto: Sydvestjyske Museer.
when we arrived at the museum we were informed we had gotten lucky, as the Damhus treasure, a recent discovery of silver bootie from the viking she moat likely meant as a sacrifice to the gods, had been found and was spending some time exposed in the museum before moving on to a lab on the 4th November.
The above coin is one of 252 viking era coins, approx. 1200 years old, found in a swampy area this August 2018.
It was a bit of a surprise, as the Damhus treasure, as it is known, was found in an area not often frequented by metal detector wielding treasure hunters, and is a place where said coins should have had no business being.
They were spread about in a particular pattern that led the archeologists to theorize that the coins had been in a leather pouch or container and had been deposited on the ground at the time, not buried or otherwise protected.

Foto: Sydvestjyske Museer.
This pattern apparently corresponds to farmers plowing through fertile soil again and again and again over the years, each time spreading the buried treasure slightly.
at least the humidity helped preserve this treasure. The coins were said to be close to what their newly minted appearance would have been when they were taken from the ground.

Foto: Sydvestjyske Museer
When we'd finished gawking at the written explanation of all this and the museum case holding all these coins, as well as how the leading expert in old coins had literally Put the coins in order of creation by measuring weights and evaluating when the different die used to mark the silver was applied, got worn, and a new due had been introduced, we proceded to the rest of the museum.

The title is literally "meant for the gods, but now taken back".
We vikings don't mess around. no gods get our treasures for long 😈
so as I was saying, once our gawking was over, we went into the actual museum.

viking coins galore

I learned quite a lot about Ribe, and it's role as one of both the oldest danish settlements, and most prosperous trade ports...
Although that might or might not have something to do with how they managed to get the king to give them complete freedom from trade taxation.
damn, those were some profitable times for Ribe !!!

The silver coins used back in the very start (~ 500 after christ) were very small ( size of my fingertips small 😲) but, given exterior currencies weren't allowed to be used in internal trade, and were heavily controlled, these coins flourished as trade with the outside world did.
And given where we've found these coins, that trade sure did flourish !!

These coins, with their obverse representing a bearded, masked man with hair, and their reverse an animal of some kind, were called **Wodan / Monster coins ** 😎 😎 😎 👹👹👹

There was also an exposition shoeing of the Gold of the North: Amber.
It was highly priced back then, especially the sculpted pieces

yup. .. that's an amber axe miniature.
what can I say... We vikings have an one track mind 😉

Another couple of coins, some time later in the 10th century

an interesting thing to notice us that even way back then it was a coin economy, not a weight economy.
In a weight economy merchants would have cut up and perforated coins to get the exact silver value they wanted !
but in denmark no coins like that have been discovered, so the winning theory /conclusion is a coin economy where coins stored value through their aoesrance, not the metals they were made of.