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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;FitzNigel, post: 7802628, member: 74712&quot;]My wife and I are currently traveling around Iceland to celebrate our 7th anniversary (today!).&nbsp; As such, I wanted to post something relevant, but medieval Iceland did not use coins as coins.&nbsp; Rather, their monetary unit of account was the lögeyrir, which was a length of cloth six ells long and two ells wide (or 2940mm x 980mm).&nbsp; In the eleventh century, Eight lögeyrir equaled one ounce of silver.</p><p><br /></p><p>Well, I have no medieval ells of cloth to share, but I do have some silver that would have been used in Scandinavian trade (with a full write-up <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/used-and-abused-coins-and-the-vikings.346862/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/used-and-abused-coins-and-the-vikings.346862/">here</a>):</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1339968[/ATTACH] Abbasid Caliphate, Third Period</p><p>Al-Radi Billah, r. 322-329 AH/934-940 A.D. (324 AH/936/7 A.D.)</p><p>Marinate al Salam Mint (present day Baghdad), AR Dirhem, 27.08 mm x 3.0 grams</p><p>Obv.: Outer Margin: لله الأمر من قبل و من بعد ويومئذ يفرح المؤمنون بنصر الله.&nbsp; Inner Margin: بسم الله ضرب هذا الدرهم بمدينة السلام سنة اربع و عشرين و ثلث مائة.&nbsp; Center: لا شريك له / الله وحده / لا الاه الا </p><p>Rev.: Margin: محمد رسول الله ارسله بالهدى و دين الحق ليظهره على الدين كله ولو كره المشركون&nbsp; Center: د / الراضى بالله / الله / رسول / محمد / لله </p><p>Ref.: Album 255.1 (Without Heir)</p><p>Note: Holed.&nbsp; Potentially from the Vikings.</p><p><br /></p><p>While this coin lacks the distinctive peck marks that Scandinavians used to test the purity of the silver, these silver dirhams were used as jewelry by them, and would have been holed much like my example.&nbsp; In fact, while wandering through the National Museum of Iceland, just such a necklace was found on the island and put on display:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1339969[/ATTACH] While I don’t think there is any significance to it, I do find it interesting that the orientation of the text to the hole in the coins matched the orientation of my coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>There were two other interesting coin displays at the museum - one of which was a number of 3rd century Roman coins which were found at different norse settlements in the south and east of the island:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1339970[/ATTACH] </p><p>How and why some of the earliest settlers of Iceland would have these coins, I couldn’t begin to explain, especially since none of them even looked silver (the two that do here is due to my bad photography).</p><p><br /></p><p>Lastly, only one hoard of silver which contained coins has been found in Iceland.&nbsp; 360 silver coins, most of them from the reign of Æthelred II, suggesting this was a Danegeld payment:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1339971[/ATTACH] </p><p>and here is the rest of the hoard which contained numerous pieces of random silver:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1339972[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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