A New Late Viking-age Hoard from Poland: Coins and Gold Jewellery as Evidence for the History of Central Europe

Preliminary Presentation

Abstract

A New Late Viking-age Hoard from Poland: Coins and Gold Jewellery as Evidence for the History of Central Europe. Preliminary Presentation

In the late autumn of 2020, a group of archaeologists from the city of Kalisz, Poland, undertook some research in the village of Słuszków (woj. wielkopolskie/PL). It was here in 1935 that one of the greatest hoards dating back to the beginning of the 12^th century (»Słuszków 1«) had been discovered. The aim of the expedition was only to establish the position of this find, but in the course of a metal detector survey, something unexpected happened – the discovery of another hoard (»Słuszków 2«). The first hoard, which had been divided among people in the village, was initially large. It could have contained up to 20,000 coins and probably more silver ornaments than the number that have survived from this find. It is estimated that the original deposit weighed 15 kg, so it would be the largest known hoard from the turn of the 11^th and 12^th centuries from Poland. The second deposit from Słuszków consists of 6,500 items, most of them coins, mainly Saxon and Polish cross deniers, and several dozen different European coins, as well as flat silver ingots, pieces of lead and four gold finger-rings. The latter items are the first finds of this type in Viking-age Polish hoards. On one finger-ring there is a Cyrillic inscription suggesting the origin of the ring from the Kiev Principality. The three other rings were possibly produced according to Byzantine-Carolingian tradition in Germany in the Ottonian or Salian Periods. Two large groups of cross deniers found in this deposit were previously known almost exclusively from the Słuszków 1 hoard. They were minted at the turn of the 11^th and 12^th centuries, probably in the mint in Kalisz or in its vicinity. Their issue is hypothetically attributed to the Polish ruler Zbigniew († 1111?). Also noteworthy is a fragment of an official coin of Duke Władysław Herman († 1102), showing his name and image, minted in Cracow after 1080. Other notable finds are examples of very rare large deniers issued by Palatine Sieciech († ca. 1110). These coins are the first private issues of bullion coins in Poland by a known and recognized magnate. Among the several dozen foreign coins, it seems that the most recent one is a denier of King Ladislaus I the Saint of Hungary († 1095), minted at the earliest in the 1080s. In the case of the two hoards from Słuszków, the concealment of such a large amount of precious metal items can probably be associated with some violent event, such as the war between two royal brothers, Zbigniew and Bolesław. The paper is a preliminary presentation of this new hoard and its contents.