So far, we did not have solid numismatic evidence for the international trade in Estonia before t... more So far, we did not have solid numismatic evidence for the international trade in Estonia before the 830s. The hoard of Vitsiku proves that at least the area of today’s Virumaa district has been involved in international networks that connected the East and the West in the early stage of the influx of Cufic dirhams to the North around ca. 800. Whereas the coins, most probably, reached Estonia via Russia and along the southern coast of the Finnish bay, other silver objects seemingly originate from Gotland.
The recently discovered hoard of Kirimäe, W-Estonia (tpq. 1200) is unique in several respects. I... more The recently discovered hoard of Kirimäe, W-Estonia (tpq. 1200) is unique in several respects. It contains a number of rare and even some unrecorded coins. It also provides us with the earliest evidence of minting by bishop Albert in Riga and dates it to the early years of his reign. In addition, the stamped silver bar in the deposit proves that silver ingots were cast on Gotland at the end of the 12th century. Since we are entitled to believe that it cannot have been just a single case, it also testifies that the bars on the island might have been treated as pieces of money rather than just pieces of silver. The location of the finding place of the hoard not far from what some decades later became the town Haapsalu supports the idea of a certain importance of the area in international trade already in the late 12th – early 13th century.
This volume is the proceeding of a workshop held in cooperation with the Estonian History Museum ... more This volume is the proceeding of a workshop held in cooperation with the Estonian History Museum and the Institute of History, Archaeology and Art History of Tallinn University, 5-7 September 2018 in Tallinn, Estonia. In order to make coins, metal was first needed. Besides gold and silver, copper has also been significantly used as coinage metal of lesser value. Many countries did not have their own metal resources for a long time and were completely dependent on exports. Thus, all coinage metals had to be transported from producers to end users. At this point, merchants took over. The bigger the economy, the bigger its need for money. The attitudes of nations towards their monetary policy have been extremely diverse. Whereas England tried to sustain silver coinage, Sweden and Spain minted mainly pure copper in the 17th century. The heavy, inconvenient coins and increasing expenditures caused the introduction of paper money in Europe. The 18th–19th century saw the triumph of copper coinage and paper money almost everywhere. On the other hand, monetary systems were based on gold and silver standards. Problems concerning bimetallism and the changing values of its components occurred. The aim of the conference was to trace the path of the minting of coins from mining to the issuance of fresh coins from mints. There are, indeed, estimations about the scope of mining, trading and minting, as well as a general understanding about the processes that took place. However, many details remain unclear and require a closer consideration.
This paper deals with the problems of coinage in medieval Courland. The aim of the study is to da... more This paper deals with the problems of coinage in medieval Courland. The aim of the study is to date the launch of minting, locate the mint(s) and reveal the monetary system and minting standard. Although the data available are extremely limited, a comparative study of written and numismatic sources has provided provisional results. Also, a new hypothesis about the origins of a local monetary unit known as the osering is presented. Finally, the role of Westphalia merchants in the colonisation of and their route to Courland are discussed in the light of the coin finds.
This chapter presents in full the small gold hoard from Essu, north-east Estonia, on the Vikings’... more This chapter presents in full the small gold hoard from Essu, north-east Estonia, on the Vikings’ Austrvegr (eastern route). The hoard was found in a peat bog in the nineteenth century, and comprised six gold pendants dating to around the last quarter of the ninth century. This chapter provides a detailed analysis of the six pendants—one Arabic dinar-pendant and five pendants decorated with filigree and granulation—discussing their decoration and cultural parallels. Results from recent Scanning Electron Microscopy-Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) analysis cast new light on the pendants’ production, alloy content, and use-wear. It is suggested that the filigree pendants were manufactured within Scandinavia and originally formed part of an elaborate female necklace, while the dinar-pendant reached Estonia via the Nordic countries. Overall, the hoard illustrates the prominence of gold within the Viking Age display economy. The chapter concludes by discussing the significa...
Some Russian monetary terms, adapted by Hanseatic merchants trading with Novgorod, are discussed ... more Some Russian monetary terms, adapted by Hanseatic merchants trading with Novgorod, are discussed in the paper. According to some data from the 14th-15th centuries a silver ingot (a rouble) was divided into 60 zolotniks, not 48, as was the case later. Also, zolotnik was not only a weight unit, but also a monetary one. Further, the meaning of the terms marthoubt (marten’s head, i. e. mordka) and mark schin is analysed. Mordka could mean a Livonian artig of the early 15th century. Mark schin, in turn, was a unit of account used by Germans for a grivna of coins. At the beginning of the 15th century a mark schin comprised 28 mordkasartigs but due to Novgorod implementing its own coinage in 1420 it then equated to 14 dengas. Finally, the stuck sulvers turned from an ingot into a unit of accounting of 216 dengas during the 15th century (no later than 1487). Thus, by the end of the 15th century the following monetary system of Novgorod, adapted by Hanseatic merchants, had arisen: 1 rouble (...
On 17 August 2010 a Late Viking period hoard (tpq. 1059), consisting of silver coins, pieces of s... more On 17 August 2010 a Late Viking period hoard (tpq. 1059), consisting of silver coins, pieces of silver jewellery and fragments of hand-moulded ceramic vessel, was brought to the Institute of History, University of Tallinn (Figs 1; 2: 1–8). This remarkable discovery had been made a day earlier in a recently harvested field in the village of Linnakse (North-Estonia, county of Anija) using a metal detector. The finder of the hoard also handed over a number of bronze and iron artefacts from three different periods: the Roman, the Middle and the Late Iron Age. The artefacts, all of them with marks of intentional damage or fire deformation, had been found in the same field 20–50 m south of the find-spot of the hoard. The exact circumstances of the discovery remained unclear due to the urgent need to excavate the silver hoard. Therefore it was decided to proceed with archaeological investigation, including landscape survey and trial excavations, at the site.
This volume is the proceeding of a workshop held in cooperation with the Estonian History Museum ... more This volume is the proceeding of a workshop held in cooperation with the Estonian History Museum and the Institute of History, Archaeology and Art History of Tallinn University, 5-7 September 2018 in Tallinn, Estonia. In order to make coins, metal was first needed. Besides gold and silver, copper has also been significantly used as coinage metal of lesser value. Many countries did not have their own metal resources for a long time and were completely dependent on exports. Thus, all coinage metals had to be transported from producers to end users. At this point, merchants took over. The bigger the economy, the bigger its need for money. The attitudes of nations towards their monetary policy have been extremely diverse. Whereas England tried to sustain silver coinage, Sweden and Spain minted mainly pure copper in the 17th century. The heavy, inconvenient coins and increasing expenditures caused the introduction of paper money in Europe. The 18th–19th century saw the triumph of copper ...
In 2018-2019 at least 35 000 finds were revealed on the plot at Jahu 6 in the medieval and early ... more In 2018-2019 at least 35 000 finds were revealed on the plot at Jahu 6 in the medieval and early modern Kalamaja suburb of Tallinn, which had been brought to the disposal area together with waste and garbage from the city surrounded by the city wall. In addition, 249 coins from the 14th-15th century were found. The latter are mostly Livonian coins, first and foremost from Tallinn, less from Tartu and Riga because foreign coins constituted only 2.4 per cent. The most common denomination is pfennig. The composition of the coin assemblage confirms, with regard to its origin and nominal distribution, the previous knowledge of coin circulation in the 15th-century Livonia based on the comparative analysis of coin hoards and written sources. The fact that the temporal distribution of coins in the upper and deeper layers is rather even suggests that most of the garbage had been deposed over a rather short period of time in 1470-1480. It seems that garbage disposal may have ended some time b...
So far, we did not have solid numismatic evidence for the international trade in Estonia before t... more So far, we did not have solid numismatic evidence for the international trade in Estonia before the 830s. The hoard of Vitsiku proves that at least the area of today’s Virumaa district has been involved in international networks that connected the East and the West in the early stage of the influx of Cufic dirhams to the North around ca. 800. Whereas the coins, most probably, reached Estonia via Russia and along the southern coast of the Finnish bay, other silver objects seemingly originate from Gotland.
The recently discovered hoard of Kirimäe, W-Estonia (tpq. 1200) is unique in several respects. I... more The recently discovered hoard of Kirimäe, W-Estonia (tpq. 1200) is unique in several respects. It contains a number of rare and even some unrecorded coins. It also provides us with the earliest evidence of minting by bishop Albert in Riga and dates it to the early years of his reign. In addition, the stamped silver bar in the deposit proves that silver ingots were cast on Gotland at the end of the 12th century. Since we are entitled to believe that it cannot have been just a single case, it also testifies that the bars on the island might have been treated as pieces of money rather than just pieces of silver. The location of the finding place of the hoard not far from what some decades later became the town Haapsalu supports the idea of a certain importance of the area in international trade already in the late 12th – early 13th century.
This volume is the proceeding of a workshop held in cooperation with the Estonian History Museum ... more This volume is the proceeding of a workshop held in cooperation with the Estonian History Museum and the Institute of History, Archaeology and Art History of Tallinn University, 5-7 September 2018 in Tallinn, Estonia. In order to make coins, metal was first needed. Besides gold and silver, copper has also been significantly used as coinage metal of lesser value. Many countries did not have their own metal resources for a long time and were completely dependent on exports. Thus, all coinage metals had to be transported from producers to end users. At this point, merchants took over. The bigger the economy, the bigger its need for money. The attitudes of nations towards their monetary policy have been extremely diverse. Whereas England tried to sustain silver coinage, Sweden and Spain minted mainly pure copper in the 17th century. The heavy, inconvenient coins and increasing expenditures caused the introduction of paper money in Europe. The 18th–19th century saw the triumph of copper coinage and paper money almost everywhere. On the other hand, monetary systems were based on gold and silver standards. Problems concerning bimetallism and the changing values of its components occurred. The aim of the conference was to trace the path of the minting of coins from mining to the issuance of fresh coins from mints. There are, indeed, estimations about the scope of mining, trading and minting, as well as a general understanding about the processes that took place. However, many details remain unclear and require a closer consideration.
This paper deals with the problems of coinage in medieval Courland. The aim of the study is to da... more This paper deals with the problems of coinage in medieval Courland. The aim of the study is to date the launch of minting, locate the mint(s) and reveal the monetary system and minting standard. Although the data available are extremely limited, a comparative study of written and numismatic sources has provided provisional results. Also, a new hypothesis about the origins of a local monetary unit known as the osering is presented. Finally, the role of Westphalia merchants in the colonisation of and their route to Courland are discussed in the light of the coin finds.
This chapter presents in full the small gold hoard from Essu, north-east Estonia, on the Vikings’... more This chapter presents in full the small gold hoard from Essu, north-east Estonia, on the Vikings’ Austrvegr (eastern route). The hoard was found in a peat bog in the nineteenth century, and comprised six gold pendants dating to around the last quarter of the ninth century. This chapter provides a detailed analysis of the six pendants—one Arabic dinar-pendant and five pendants decorated with filigree and granulation—discussing their decoration and cultural parallels. Results from recent Scanning Electron Microscopy-Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) analysis cast new light on the pendants’ production, alloy content, and use-wear. It is suggested that the filigree pendants were manufactured within Scandinavia and originally formed part of an elaborate female necklace, while the dinar-pendant reached Estonia via the Nordic countries. Overall, the hoard illustrates the prominence of gold within the Viking Age display economy. The chapter concludes by discussing the significa...
Some Russian monetary terms, adapted by Hanseatic merchants trading with Novgorod, are discussed ... more Some Russian monetary terms, adapted by Hanseatic merchants trading with Novgorod, are discussed in the paper. According to some data from the 14th-15th centuries a silver ingot (a rouble) was divided into 60 zolotniks, not 48, as was the case later. Also, zolotnik was not only a weight unit, but also a monetary one. Further, the meaning of the terms marthoubt (marten’s head, i. e. mordka) and mark schin is analysed. Mordka could mean a Livonian artig of the early 15th century. Mark schin, in turn, was a unit of account used by Germans for a grivna of coins. At the beginning of the 15th century a mark schin comprised 28 mordkasartigs but due to Novgorod implementing its own coinage in 1420 it then equated to 14 dengas. Finally, the stuck sulvers turned from an ingot into a unit of accounting of 216 dengas during the 15th century (no later than 1487). Thus, by the end of the 15th century the following monetary system of Novgorod, adapted by Hanseatic merchants, had arisen: 1 rouble (...
On 17 August 2010 a Late Viking period hoard (tpq. 1059), consisting of silver coins, pieces of s... more On 17 August 2010 a Late Viking period hoard (tpq. 1059), consisting of silver coins, pieces of silver jewellery and fragments of hand-moulded ceramic vessel, was brought to the Institute of History, University of Tallinn (Figs 1; 2: 1–8). This remarkable discovery had been made a day earlier in a recently harvested field in the village of Linnakse (North-Estonia, county of Anija) using a metal detector. The finder of the hoard also handed over a number of bronze and iron artefacts from three different periods: the Roman, the Middle and the Late Iron Age. The artefacts, all of them with marks of intentional damage or fire deformation, had been found in the same field 20–50 m south of the find-spot of the hoard. The exact circumstances of the discovery remained unclear due to the urgent need to excavate the silver hoard. Therefore it was decided to proceed with archaeological investigation, including landscape survey and trial excavations, at the site.
This volume is the proceeding of a workshop held in cooperation with the Estonian History Museum ... more This volume is the proceeding of a workshop held in cooperation with the Estonian History Museum and the Institute of History, Archaeology and Art History of Tallinn University, 5-7 September 2018 in Tallinn, Estonia. In order to make coins, metal was first needed. Besides gold and silver, copper has also been significantly used as coinage metal of lesser value. Many countries did not have their own metal resources for a long time and were completely dependent on exports. Thus, all coinage metals had to be transported from producers to end users. At this point, merchants took over. The bigger the economy, the bigger its need for money. The attitudes of nations towards their monetary policy have been extremely diverse. Whereas England tried to sustain silver coinage, Sweden and Spain minted mainly pure copper in the 17th century. The heavy, inconvenient coins and increasing expenditures caused the introduction of paper money in Europe. The 18th–19th century saw the triumph of copper ...
In 2018-2019 at least 35 000 finds were revealed on the plot at Jahu 6 in the medieval and early ... more In 2018-2019 at least 35 000 finds were revealed on the plot at Jahu 6 in the medieval and early modern Kalamaja suburb of Tallinn, which had been brought to the disposal area together with waste and garbage from the city surrounded by the city wall. In addition, 249 coins from the 14th-15th century were found. The latter are mostly Livonian coins, first and foremost from Tallinn, less from Tartu and Riga because foreign coins constituted only 2.4 per cent. The most common denomination is pfennig. The composition of the coin assemblage confirms, with regard to its origin and nominal distribution, the previous knowledge of coin circulation in the 15th-century Livonia based on the comparative analysis of coin hoards and written sources. The fact that the temporal distribution of coins in the upper and deeper layers is rather even suggests that most of the garbage had been deposed over a rather short period of time in 1470-1480. It seems that garbage disposal may have ended some time b...
Loomad keskaegse Liivimaa ühiskonnas ja kunstis, 2022
The book discusses human-animal interactions and the depiction of animals in medieval Livonia. Th... more The book discusses human-animal interactions and the depiction of animals in medieval Livonia. The chapters are: 1. Animals and law, 2. Horses of the Teutonic Order, 3. Animals as gifts and inheritance, 4. Animals as food, 6. Animals in art.
Im verlassenen Lager des Herzogs Magnus bei Reval starb am 20. März 1570 Kaufmann Matheus Spielma... more Im verlassenen Lager des Herzogs Magnus bei Reval starb am 20. März 1570 Kaufmann Matheus Spielmann. Im Stadtarchiv Tallinn werden zwei Rechnungsbücher Spielmanns aus den Jahren 1568-1570 aufbewahrt. Diese Quellen erlauben einen Einblick in den Handelsbeziehungen von Reval in der Zeit des Livländischen Kriegs. Im Gegensatz zur verbreiteten Auffassungen geht daraus hervor, dass Reval seine internationale Rolle als Vermittler im Handel zwischen Westeuropa und Russland nicht eingebüßt hatte und zwar ungeachtet der Konkurrenz mit Narva und trotz des Kriegs, der schon etwa zehn Jahre gedauert hatte. Über Spielmann selbst weiβ man nur, dass er ein begabter Kaufmann gewesen ist, dessen Handelskontakte von Antwerpen bis Wilna und von Köln bis Moskau reichten und ihm hohe Umsätze einbrachten.
Numismatica Baltica 1
Between Klaipeda and Turku
Decennary volume of the Association of Baltic Nu... more Numismatica Baltica 1 Between Klaipeda and Turku Decennary volume of the Association of Baltic Numismatists Association of Baltic Numismatists 2016
In 2015 the Association of Baltic Numismatists celebrated its decennial jubilee. The present coll... more In 2015 the Association of Baltic Numismatists celebrated its decennial jubilee. The present collection of papers has been written by the members of the association and is dedicated to the anniversary. As the title indicates this volume hopefully will be the first of a long series.
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Between Klaipeda and Turku
Decennary volume of the Association of Baltic Numismatists
Association of Baltic Numismatists 2016