How Scales Balanced The Viking's

     Many think of Vikings as a dull and ignorant group of pillagers, that couldn't understand basic concepts of how a society might work. Vikings, are perhaps misunderstood because they didn't do things like everybody else. Such as, with the object as seen up above the weight scales which were commonly used by the Vikings in the range of about 1000 to 1200 CE (MacGregor 1). Commonly used in trading areas in weighing of blocks of the materials they had melted down from different materials like coins (MacGregor 1). A big part of where they were introduced to the precious metal was from the Islamic world around the 800's (MacGregor 1).  This known because over 100,000 Islamic coin's were recorded in Viking time in Scandinavia (MacGregor 1). The reason the Vikings even got the coins was because of their trade with the Islamic world. The Vikings though had a different idea though of the value of the coinage compared to the Islamic world. The Vikings were more concerned with the weight of the material rather than a particular idea of the value of that coin ("Vikings Scales and Weights"). That is why as mentioned before, that often time the precious metals would be melted down into these blocks to go along more with their bullion economy (MacGregor 1).

    Of course, not all metal was of the same value or quality. Which the Vikings knew and therefore determined value by testing the value of the metal. They did this by finding in the coins and different metals found, they had little marks in the metal were they had pricked it with the end of the knife ("Vikings Scales and Weights").  The scales were quite small and easily travelable to go back and forth to trade posts ( "Vikings Scales and Weights"). This is known because these scales were found all over the Viking world even as far as west as Ireland (MacGregor 1). Scales going back to their convenant size were made smaller as seen in the image above. They were made of usually made up of two bronze pans which were attached to one bronze arm with one pan on each end ("Vikings Scales and Weights"). Thin chains are attached to each pan to the bronze arm like in the first image, but in this image above when discovered the chain was completely gone. While although several different medals were traded the bigger or higher value trades always dealt with silver and gold ("Vikings Scales and Weights"). Most commonly silver was the most commonly used and the trades were mostly for securing social and political relationships ("Vikings Scales and Weights"). Due to this silver was that most interested traders so the scales would be used and they would actually have to cut up many of the silver blocks ("Vikings Scales and Weights"). It is stated that that could be several pounds of silver scales would handle at a time ("Vikings Scales and Weights"). Which for that time is really good, these weight scales were really valuable to the Viking economy. It gave them a chance to have sense of currency and value in their society. 

Sources

MacGregor, Neil. A history of the Viking World- in 10 extraordinary objects The Guardian, 2014. 

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/mar/03/viking-world-british-museum-neil-macgregor-exhibition Accessed 12 Sept. 2019 

"Viking Scales and Weights" Teaching History with 100 Objects: The British Museum. 

http://www.teachinghistory100.org/objects/about_the_object/viking_scales_and_weights Accessed 12 Sept. 2019