Visited the Jorvik Viking Centre in York, England. Jorvik is the old Viking name of the city. In Norse languages, the “J” in Jorvik is pronounce like “y” in you … “Yorvik”. So, “Jorvik” became “York” after Viking rule ended. The Viking Centre is a walk-through museum but also has a section where you get in an automatic self-propelled cart that takes you through tunnels with stops at various exhibits and dioramas. Enjoyable and informative. One section of the walk-through part is devoted to coins and the way they were struck (hammered) in medieval times. For a small charge, an employee, dressed in medieval garb, will strike a couple of coins for you. They are replicas of silver pennies but are made of pewter. The dies are made of iron like the originals and are hammer struck. The museum does cheat a bit by using a metal sleeve around the dies. This keeps the dies aligned and allows striking without a hand on the upper die … prevents a lot of ouches. The youtube link below shows the process. The first pics below show the coins in their holder. Then there are close-ups of the coins. The first coin is a mule that probably never existed. It is based on a couple of dies discovered in the Coppergate dig in York in the late 1970s. One die shows St. Peter’s silver penny, struck under Viking rule about 910-920. It’s the side with the sword and curious combo of Thor’s hammer and a Maltese cross. The inscription, SCI PET, above sword, R MO, below sword, stands for Sancti Petri Moneta - the money of St. Peter. The other side is a silver penny of King Athelstan, struck 927-938. Athelstan kicked the Vikings out of York. So, the inscription is ATHELSTAN REX TO[TIUS] BRI[TANNIAE] … Athelstan King of all Britain. The other coin is the silver penny of Viking King Harthacnut, dated to about 910. One side of the coin is inscribed IRDECONVT, the Viking spelling of Harthacnut. If the museum had chosen to strike the other side like the original, it would have shown DNS (Dominus … master) and REX (king). Instead, they struck the name of the museum on the reverse. This is the last of my reports on our English tour. Hope you enjoyed them. Mike Link:
The British made Hathacnut pennies are really hard to find. This one was stuck in Denmark, but it found its way into the Spink, now Sovereign catalog.
