A Viking-era silver ingot discovered by a metal detectorist on the Isle of Man has been declared treasure and is now on display at the Manx Museum in Douglas.

Detectorist John Smart came across the cigarillo-shaped bar of metal in the southern part of the island. The exact find location is being kept under wraps to prevent interest from ill-intentioned people, but the area has not had a great deal of Viking material found there, so the ingot is unusually located, even though square mile per square mile, more Viking silver has been found on the Isle of Man than in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Vikings arrived on the Isle of Man in the late 8th century as traders. Its location in the Irish Set at the midpoint between England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, made the island an attractive base for the seafaring Vikings. They took the Island in 877 and were entirely in control by 900 A.D. Viking burials have been found on the island, and the influence of Viking culture on Manx culture is still seen throughout the island, even unto its parliament, the Tynwald, whose name derives for the Old Norse word for the meeting place of the assembly.

The newly-discovered ingot weighs 10.53 grams and is intact. The bars were used as currency like coins, the silver cut off by weight for payment, so they are often found in fragmented condition. There is no datable context, but the general range for Viking silver ingots on the Isle of Man is 900-1040 A.D.

Allison Fox, Manx National Heritage Curator for Archaeology said:

“Ingots like this were used in the Viking world for trade. The ingots were weighed and tested to make sure of their silver content and they were used in part or in whole to buy whatever a Viking needed. It was a cross-border currency. During the later Viking Age, ingots were used alongside coinage. This ingot may only be a small artefact, but put into context, it helps illustrate how the Isle of Man was a part of the international Viking trade network 1000 years ago including how the Viking economy operated and where on the island trade was taking place.”

The requirements of the Isle of Man’s Treasure Act 2017 categorizes any artifact as treasure if it is 1) deeply connected with Manx history, 2) of outstanding significance to the study of Manx art or history, 3) that there be no traceable owner, and 4) that it is composed of at least 10% precious metal. University of Liverpool researchers tested the ingot with x-ray fluorescence and a scanning electron microscope. They found its silver content was more than 88%, so it fits all elements of the legal definition. The Coroner of Inquests declared the ingot treasure on May 28th, and it went on display at the museum two days later.

Two 800-year-old gravestone slabs that went down with the ship transporting them in the 13th century have been recovered. One slab is intact and in excellent condition; the other is much larger but broken into two pieces. The slabs were brought to the surface in a complex operation requiring a barge anchored to the seabed, a crane and huge metal crates to raise the heavy Purbeck stone slabs.

The Mortar Wreck sank in Studland Bay off the coast of Dorset in the second half of the 13th century. Dendrochronological analysis of the hull planking found the clinker-built ship was made from oak trees cut down in Ireland between 1242-1265, when Henry III ruled England. It is the only known wreck of a seagoing vessel from the 11th to the 14th centuries in English waters, and the oldest known shipwreck in the seas surrounding the British Isles. (There are a few Roman wrecks but they were found inland.)

This was a period of prosperity when the population was booming and huge building projects like the construction of Westminster Abbey and Salisbury Cathedral were underway. The Purbeck quarrying and transport industry was at its peak during this time, and the gravestone slabs were very popular among the clerical elite. The ship was carrying a heavy load of unworked quarried Purbeck stone, the gravestone slabs, carved with cross decorations but not polished yet and not personalized, and a number of daily use objects including Purbeck stone mortars used for grinding flour, which is what the wreck was named after.

The wreck was discovered in 2019 by Bournemouth University divers. It was granted official protection in 2022, and maritime archaeologists have been monitoring it for condition and exposure as sediment erodes. The monitoring of the Mortar Wreck will continue. This includes a plan to document the timber frames of the ships hull. It will also be a learning site for students at the university to be trained in maritime archaeology.

The recovered slabs will be desalinated and conserved by Bournemouth University experts. They will go on public display at the Poole Museum in its new Shipwreck Gallery when it reopens next year.

An excavation at the Burgstein castle site in southern Germany unearthed an exceptional assemblage of medieval game pieces: a chess knight, four flower-shaped tokens and a die, all carved from antler. They date to the 11th or 12th century, which makes them rare surviving pieces from the early decades of when chess took root in Europe.

The progenitor of chess was born in India and from there was introduced to Persia in the 7th century. It was in Persia that it took on characteristic features like “checkmate” (originally “shah mat!” which is Persian for “the king is helpless”) and developed the rule set we recognize today. Chess became a key element of a young noble’s education in Persia, and its educational role in developing the skills of the nobility followed when chess spread to Europe. By the early 12th century, it was so thoroughly established that Petrus Alfonsus, author and physician to Alfonso I, King of Aragon, listed playing chess as one of the seven virtuous disciplines all good knights should learn (the other six are riding, swimming, archery, fencing, hunting and poetry).

The finds were discovered during excavations by the DFG Collaborative Research Centre 1070 Resource Cultures and the [State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Baden-Württemberg] in a previously unknown castle in southern Germany (Baden-Württemberg, Reutlingen district). “They were lying under the debris of a wall where they were lost or hidden in the Middle Ages,” said Dr Michael Kienzle (University of Tübingen). This covering contributed to the exceptionally good surface preservation of the artefacts. “Under the microscope, a typical sheen from holding and moving the pieces can be seen,” explained Dr Flavia Venditti (University of Tübingen).

The wear pattern detectable on the surface of the knight indicates that the piece was lifted and moved the same way it is in chess matches today, evidence that the rules of the game have been consistent for a thousand years. Most well-preserved surviving chess pieces from the Middle Ages date to the 13th century or later, so this grouping gives archaeologists a unique opportunity to study early European chess play.

The eyes and mane of the 4 cm high horse figure are vividly shaped. This elaborate design is typical of particularly high-quality chess pieces from this period. The red paint residues found on the flower-shaped pieces are currently being chemically analyzed.

The finds will be going on public display for the first time at a special exhibition in Pfullinger the weekend of June 15th. They will then be part of the large state exhibition The Hidden Land in Stuttgart starting September 13th.

The knight, die and one of the tokens have been 3D scanned and can now be viewed online.

A farmer discovered a rare Viking sword while cleaning up a field in his farm in Suldal, Norway. Øyvind Tveitane Lovra and his son were preparing a field that hadn’t been farmed in years for plowing when they picked up an iron object. At first Lovra thought it was some rusty old piece of farm equipment, but when he went to toss it, he realized it was actually the hilt of a sword.

Norwegian law requires that people who find potentially historic objects report them to the county council which then forwards the items to the archaeological museum for assessment. Even fragments must be reported. So Lovra contacted the Rogaland County Council and on Monday, May 27th, two archaeologists went to the farm to collect the piece. They transferred it to the Archaeological Museum of the University of Stavanger, where it was examined in detail by conservator Hege Hollund.

What remains of the sword is just under 15 long. When intact, it would have been twice that length. Despite the thick corrosion crust and the severing of the blade, the sword and hilt are in surprisingly good condition, preserved by the dense clay soil. An X-ray revealed that the sword had what appear to be cross-shaped letters on the blade. That strongly suggests this is one of the rare, highly prized Ulfberht swords that are inlaid with the inscription “+VLFBERHT+,” believed to be the name of the swordsmith.

Ulfberht swords were made in the Rhineland region between the 9th and 11th centuries. They were high quality weapons and an undisputed status symbol among the warriors of the Viking Age. Most of the 170 or so examples that have been discovered were in funerary contexts, buried with their owners. About 45 of them have been found in Norway, and none of them were discovered in Rogaland. This is the first one found in the county.

Archaeologists explored the find site with metal detectors but have made no further discoveries. The sword will be cleaned and conserved to remove the rust layer and get a full look at the sword itself.