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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Nap, post: 4650245, member: 73099&quot;]Nice discussion, [USER=74712]@FitzNigel[/USER], as always</p><p><br /></p><p>Here are some Anglo-Viking coins in my collection:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1148429[/ATTACH] </p><p>A Viking imitation of Alfred the Great’s famous Londonia monogram penny.&nbsp; Crude and underweight, along with double struck, is highly suggestive of Viking manufacture.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1148428[/ATTACH] </p><p>A likely Viking imitation of Edward the Elder’s two line type.&nbsp; Both the king and moneyer’s name are blundered, suggesting Viking imitation, though the coin is in quite good shape, among the highest technical grade for a coin of this era, suggesting possibly a hoard origin.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1148431[/ATTACH] </p><p>A more common Viking penny- a St Edmund of East Anglia penny, made in the Danelaw in honor of St. Edmund, who was of course killed by the Danes themselves.&nbsp; This particular coin appeals to me because of the Latin moneyer, with the reverse inscribed “Remigius Me F(ecit)” or ’Remigius made me’.&nbsp; It can be easy to forget that the Vikings were a multicultural society with ties to all parts of Europe and Western Asia.&nbsp; There are examples of English, Frankish, Frisian, German, and Nordic names in the moneyers of these Viking coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1148430[/ATTACH] </p><p>Probably my favorite Viking coin, a St. Peter of York penny with one-line variant, with blundered legends and symbols on the obverse.&nbsp; </p><p>The key is easily discernible below the text, representing St Peters’s keys to the gates of Heaven.&nbsp; </p><p>The symbol above is less easy to figure out.&nbsp; It almost looks like a Christmas tree on a stand, but this symbol would not really fit.&nbsp; The leaves look like palm fronds, which is seen in medieval art, but the palm has never been really associated with St. Peter.</p><p>The symbols associated with St. Peter include the key(s), rooster, pallium, books, scrolls.&nbsp; This symbol doesn’t look like any of them.</p><p>I have a few theories:</p><p>1) an upside down cross, one of the symbols of St. Peter (but really not what this looks like)</p><p>2) a tree of uncertain significance.&nbsp; Doubtfully Yggdrasil</p><p>3) an upside down hammer, possibly Mjolnir.&nbsp; As crazy as it sounds to have a Viking symbol on a Christian coin, the sword-type St. Peter coins that were produced about 20 years later feature this very thing.</p><p>4) water flowing from a wall.&nbsp; One of the early Christian miracles associated with St. Peter was that he made water flow from the wall of his prison cell</p><p>5) part of a two-part story.&nbsp; To the left of the key is a bow tie-shaped device, similar to what appears on the bottom of the top symbol.&nbsp; Is this a two-part story?&nbsp; The hammer above is coming apart, and the head of it is all that&#039;s left underneath, then this leads to the key to Heaven.&nbsp; A religious lesson to abandon the pagan faith?</p><p><br /></p><p>Any other speculation is of course greatly welcomed.&nbsp; There is only one other example of this particular coin known, and it is in a museum.&nbsp; There are maybe a dozen of the St Peter one-line pennies known, with different configurations and symbols than this one.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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