| Money Balls |
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| A free, instant lottery that appeals to everyone: sign up without any cost and you can win up to U$1.000.000. A strange way to win the lottery is to find a Viking treasure hoard, like many that have appeared in the northern world, from the Ural mountains to Iceland. Vikings were indeed good seafarers and warriors, but they were also merchants with great attraction to wealth and riches. They didn't use money as we know it, but valued precious metals in all forms, particularly silver which does not exist in natural sources in Scandinavia. So, this metal was probably even more valued than gold itself. Norse people got coins from looting as well as commerce, and they used to melt these in order to produce jewellery, mostly in the form of brooches to fasten their clothes, rings and necklaces. The brooches are particularly important in Norse culture and society: they were practical, worn items, as well as conspicuous signs of wealth. The bigger the brooches were, the more wealth their owners had, and they liked to show off. Slowly, as Vikings were being assimilated into the Christian world they began using coins as currency, but this became only perceptible during the decadence of this culture, at the end of the Middle Ages. They valued their riches and passed them on from generation to generation; precious metals were so valuable for them that they seldom placed any of those in graves or burial places. They needed the metals on Earth. Most of the times they carried their wealth with them, but on occasions it was in fact necessary to hide it; considering that they did not even leave their valuables for the deceased, it must have been quite an emotional moment for a Norse to dig a hole somewhere and hide his or her jewels. Obviously, they must have intended to return; however, that has not been always the case, as many of such hoards have been and continue to be found. Mostly, the hoards were located far away from their houses and villages in a clear attempt to be as discrete as possible and avoid any chance findings. |
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