Friends with metal detectors discover Viking treasure hidden for 1,000 years

Two hobbyists uncovered a 1,000 year old stash of 36 silver coins on the Isle of Man in May 2024. A recent report confirms the discovery and the Treasure ruling.

Metal detectorists John Crowe and David O’Hare found the cache on private land with permission. The find belongs to the late Viking Age and opens a fresh window on seaborne trade.

Studying Viking coins

The work was led by Dr Kristin Bornholdt Collins, an independent numismatist based in New Hampshire. Her recent catalog profiles Manx coins and her research centers on the later Viking economy.

Most pieces were struck for Edward the Confessor, with others naming Aethelred II and Cnut, and several Irish issues from Dublin under Sihtric Silkbeard.

English mints like York and London join Dublin in the mix, which points to busy routes across the Irish Sea.

“Having this much closely dated comparative material from separate finds is highly unusual,” said Dr Collins.

More Viking Age silver per square mile has been recorded on the Island than in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. That density helps small finds like this one punch above their weight in regional history.

Mobile economy used silver

Early Dublin pennies show Sihtric’s name, but their look copies Aethelred’s English designs, a sign of shared styles and trust. The British Museum collection documents these early imitative issues from Dublin.

Scholars group Dublin coinage into phases that align with rulers and reforms. Peer-reviewed research dates Phase II pennies to about AD 1020 to 1035 under Sihtric, which helps anchor the timeline.

A mint, a place that makes official coins, turns metal into money under strict control. When coins from York, London, Lincoln, Cambridge, and Dublin sit together in one deposit, they mark the reach of traders and payments.

Researchers also compare dies, engraved metal stamps for striking coin faces, to spot links between workshops. Die links across hoards can show how money moved and where people chose to save it.

Viking treasure on Isle of Man

Earlier hoards from Kirk Michael and Glenfaba outline a pattern of saving during the early 1000s on Man. A Manx Museum record documents coins from those deposits for study.

The Island sits in the middle of the Irish Sea, close to busy routes that touched England, Scotland, and Ireland. Its harbors and promontories gave shelter to ships moving goods and people.

A hoard like this may be working cash that went unclaimed rather than panic money buried during a crisis. Either way, the mix shows everyday decisions about saving, paying, and weighing trust.

Manx finds also include arm rings and cut silver that acted as bullion. Those pieces show people used weighed metal alongside coins when it suited the deal.

From find to Treasure

On the Isle of Man, finders must report archaeological objects and an inquest decides if they count as Treasure. The Treasure Act, a law that defines and handles reported finds, applies to such cases, and the law sets the rules.

In this case, the finders had permission to search, then handed the coins to the authorities for assessment. Professional study identified the rulers, mints, and likely date the hoard was put aside.

After a Treasure ruling, museums can acquire the objects for the public, with fair rewards considered for finders and landowners. That path keeps the past in view and the record intact.

Valuation weighs the market price of silver and the cultural value of the whole group. Clear provenance, a documented find history, protects honest finders and keeps data usable.

Reading Viking coins like documents

Coins carry rulers’ names and types along with short legends, inscriptions that identify people or places. Decoding them gives dates and networks without relying on fragile chronicles.

Weights matter, since silver pennies aimed for a standard that signaled trust across markets. Variations hint at clipping, testing, or different weight systems in play.

Some pieces show small cuts or pinpricks that tested the metal before a deal. Those tiny scars note that every acceptance depended on trust at the moment of exchange.

What happens next

Specialists will photograph, weigh, and measure each piece, then build a dataset for comparison. That record lets scholars place this deposit beside earlier Manx finds without mixing details.

Where edges are broken, analysts can study microstructure to see how coins were struck and how they wore. That work supports dating questions and points to practices in different workshops.

If residues survive, non-destructive tests like X-ray fluorescence, an X-ray method to read surface elements, can screen for trace metals linked to different mines. Results guide more targeted sampling when curators approve deeper analysis.

Once cataloged, the coins join a secure collection where people can recheck the evidence. Open records make it easier to challenge ideas with new data and methods.

Lessons from Viking coins

Thirty-six Viking coins are not a massive treasure by weight, yet they capture traffic between Dublin and several English centers. The Isle of Man sits where those routes cross, which kept its markets busy.

The mix supports a picture of flexible payments that blended the coin and weighed silver. That blend let traders match local habits without slowing the deal.

Small hoards, read carefully, do not shout. They add steady pieces to a larger story about how people trusted, paid, and saved across the Irish Sea.

Each new deposit also narrows the window on when different types overlapped in daily use. That sharper dating improves maps of movement across coasts.

Image credits: Manx National Heritage.

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