Human-made currencies such as coins and banknotes have steadily evolved over time. A small piece of precious metal or paper without a metal backing has been turned into an invisible cryptocurrency stored on a server. For decades, numismatistOr currency experts are puzzled as to where the silver present in some coins found in Britain came from. The history of coins dates back to between 660 and 750 AD, when coins were coined in the Anglo-Saxon world. Great revival of trade using silver coins. This change broke the dependence on gold, and archaeologists have discovered about 7,000 of these silver pieces.
Now, a new non-invasive way to peer into the past may have revealed where the coin’s silver came from. It provides clues to how political change and domination occur. charlemagneThe Holy Roman Emperor and the Frankish kings encouraged currency fluctuations in early medieval Europe.The findings are explained in a new document The study was published in the journal April 8 ancient It will deepen your modern understanding of the continent’s economic and political developments at the time.
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“There was speculation that the silver came from Melle in France, or from an unknown mine, or that it was melted down from church silver,” said study co-author and historian of early medieval England at the University of Cambridge. Rory Naismith said. stated in a statement. “But there was no hard evidence we could say one way or the other, so we set out to find out.”
A little help from a laser
previous research I have also tested other coins mined at Mele’s silver mines, and this one new research I looked into Fitzwilliam coins, which are not very well studied. These 49 pieces of his silverware were minted in England, the Netherlands, Belgium, and northern France and date from 660 to 820 AD. They are housed in Fitzwilliam Museum At Cambridge.
Jason Day from the University of Cambridge’s School of Earth Sciences tracked what elements were in the coins in the lab. that day, A technology called portable laser ablation. During this process, microscopic samples were collected on Teflon filters to analyze the lead isotopes present. This new technology, developed by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Minimally invasive sampling using laser and high-precision results with more traditional methods of taking metal samples.
Coins continued to be primarily silver, but the amount of gold was different. metal called bismuthThese factors led researchers to the previously unknown origins of silver. The different ratios of lead isotopes in the silver coins also provided further clues to the metal’s origin.
Byzantine silver for the masses
Twenty-nine of the coins studied date from 660 to 750 AD. They were minted in cultural regions across the borders of what is now England, France, and northwestern Europe. Frisia. However, the laser revealed very distinct chemical and isotopic signatures consistent with the tertiary to early stages. Silver from the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century Located in the eastern Mediterranean.
This Byzantine silver was uniform across all coins. There are no known sources of ore in Europe that match the elemental and isotopic signatures of these early silver coins. The researchers say there is no meaningful overlap with late Western Roman silver coins or other objects made from this metal, meaning it is not simply recycled late Roman silver.
“These coins are one of the first signs of a revival of the Nordic economy since the end of the Roman Empire,” said study co-author Jane Kershaw, an Oxford University archaeologist. stated in a statement. “These demonstrate the deep international trade links between present-day France, the Netherlands and Great Britain.”
This research suggests that the late 7th century is considered part of the Dark Ages, more accurately called the Dark Ages, and Byzantine silver must have entered Western Europe decades before it melted. suggests. Transition period. When the Roman Empire came to an end, this was a low point in trade and diplomatic contacts.
[Related: Divers recovered a treasure trove of more than 30,000 ancient, bronze coins off the Italian coast.]
“These beautiful objects of fame would only be melted down if a king or lord urgently needed large sums of cash. Some major social change would have occurred,” Kershaw said. . “The elites were liquidating resources and putting more and more money into circulation. That would have had a huge impact on people’s lives. There would have been more activities using the money involved.”
The team wants See more We investigated how and why such large amounts of silver moved from the Byzantine Empire to Western Europe.It was potentially a mixture of Trade and payments to Anglo-Saxon mercenaries Served in the Byzantine army.
The rise of frank silver
of study It also pinpointed the transition from Byzantine silver to new metal sources. They analyzed 20 coins from 750 to 820 AD and found that the silver was quite different at this time. The level of gold is low, which is a characteristic of silver. Mined in Mel, western France.The mining here particularly intense From the 8th to the 9th century.
The research team believes that Mele silver infiltrated regional silver stocks after 750 AD and was mixed with older, higher-grade gold stocks such as Byzantine silver. Although it was already known at this time that Mele was an important mine, it was not clear how quickly the site became a major silver producer.
This study argues that this widespread sedge of Mele silver was promoted by Charlemagne.he most known By unifying Western Europe by force, he gained greater control over where and how his kingdom’s coins were made. Silver supply control is likely to have taken place in parallel with other changes introduced by Charlemagne, his son, and his grandson.these monetary change This includes changing the size or thickness of the coin or engraving a name or image on the coin.
“I strongly suspect that Charlemagne did something similar with Mele Silver,” Naismith said. “We can now tell more about the circumstances in which these coins were made and how the silver was distributed within and outside of Charlemagne’s empire.”
