Viking Arm Rings

Silver was the metal of commerce among the Danes*. While gold was prized and used for ornamentation, silver was more available. Even after the Danes started making their own coins they used silver bullion as a medium of exchange.

One method of transporting and storing silver was the Arm ring. While decorative, it could also be chopped up or hacked to pieces to purchase items. The practice was so wide spread the term “hack silver” is used to denote these fragments. One indication that the rings were more than decorative comes from Professor Dan Carlsson of Gotland University. Of over 400 arm rings found in Gotland none were in graves, all in hoards.

However, while the rings had a utilitarian value, they were also decorative. While molds and casting were undoubtedly used to make rings, many look as if they were decorated using punches.

*Danes is used as a catch all turn for the invaders from Scandinavia who came to England in the 9th-11th centuries.

The five complete early tenth-century silver Hiberno-Scandinavian broad band arm-rings are known as the Red Wharf Bay hoard, and were found in the nineteenth century on the north-west side of the Penmon Peninsula, below Din Silwy hillfort (on the south-eastern side of the bay). The individual weights for the arm-rings are 76.8g (no. 2), 77.0g (no. 4), 79.4g (no. 5), 95.7g (no. 1), 105.9g (no. 3), and their maximum external diameters range from 70 to 79mm (National Museum of Wales acc. nos 28.215/1-5). The main period of manufacture for this form of arm-ring appears to have been between c. 880 and c. 930-40. A late occurrence of broad band arm-ring within a coin dated hoard is the find from Lymose, Denmark, tpq 996. The arm-ring with transverse plain grooves formed with a blunt-nosed punch is closely paralleled by a complete example from Portumna, Co. Galway (weight 68.3g.). The contemporary Cuerdale hoard, buried c. 905/10 on the basis of numismatic content, contained similar arm-rings, and both hoards have been tentativley associated with events surrounding the expulsion of Ingimund and his fellow Vikings from Dublin and then Anglesey in 902/3 (this link cannot, of course be proven).

I hope that this information is of some help. If you are intersted in Viking silver in Britain, you might like to get hold of a copy of a recent conference proceedings held at Liverpool, which includes a detailed paper on Viking silve rin Wales: 'The Huxley Viking hoard. Scandidnavian Settlement in the North-West (edited by James Graham-Campbell and Robert Philpott), published by National Museums Liverpool (2009).

Making a Patina:
You can make your designs pop out by putting a dark patina in the grooves.

Metal Source for Pewter:
Recommended - http://www.rotometals.com/
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