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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;+VGO.DVCKS, post: 7304422, member: 110504&quot;][USER=87271]@AnYangMan[/USER], thanks for a memorable confluence of historical and numismatic research.</p><p>(EDIT<img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> --And, Somebody needs to Slap me (preferably a safelely deceased grandma ...?) a remarkable example of a remarkable issue.</p><p>Took a quick look at two favorite references for the Viking Age, primary and secondary (the Hollander translation of the <u>Heimskingla</u>, and Jones, <u>A History of the Vikings</u>), and found exactly nothing to complement your research, based on Ibn Fadlan&#039;s eyewitness account ...which I don&#039;t have.</p><p>...Oh, Right, and the Coin!&nbsp; Independently of the engraving style, the combination of flan and strike compares very favorably to any Samanid dirham I&#039;ve ever seen.</p><p>...And, Right, here are the two examples of Samanids that I have pics of.&nbsp; With apologies, neither one is attributed by reign.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1277334[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1277335[/ATTACH]</p><p>&#039;Hacksilver,&#039; from a dealer based in Estonia.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1277336[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1277337[/ATTACH]</p><p>What&#039;s left of a full dirham.&nbsp; A metal detecting find from Worcestershire, in the southeastern part of the English Midlands.</p><p>Even though the very occasional Samanid dirham has been found in York and Dublin --two distinctly Norse kingdoms, as of the 10th century CE-- the geography was off for anything as easy as either of those options.</p><p>To some extent, Lawson (<u>Cnut)</u> came to the rescue.&nbsp; He notes that Cnut appointed several Scandinavians as earls in this part of England --thinly settled by Vikings in the preceding, 10th century-- and that he encouraged new Scandinavian settlement, specifically in Worcestershire.&nbsp; (See esp. 165-8.)</p><p>With that for speculative pretext, it&#039;s possible to see the pointedly worn state of the dirham as a symptom of perhaps as much as a century of circulation.&nbsp; In other words, it would have travelled far and wide in the Scandinavian world before it found its way to any place as &#039;tame&#039; as Worcesterhire.</p><p>(Public service announcement: if Worcester has a football team, and I just insulted it, apologies all around.)[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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