Beautiful Ancient Viking Jewelry Made By Skilled Craftsmen

Ellen Lloyd - AncientPages.com - Astonishing Norse jewelry discovered in hoards and burial sites reveals Vikings were highly skilled craftsmen. Viking jewelry was beautifully made, and it's still reproduced today in modern times.

Ancient Viking jewelry was mostly made of silver or bronze and sometimes gold. Many Viking ornaments featured images of animals, particularly twisting shapes of snakes.

Viking jewelry showed status and wealth

Both men and women loved wearing jewelry such as rings, brooches, bracelets, and necklaces. It was a sign of their wealth and status in society.

Poor people often made jewelry from bronze, pewter, or old animal bones. The Vikings made all their tools themselves, and everyone was expected to master wrought iron and wood. Being a craftsman was very popular during the Viking Age. There was always work and demand for skilled artisans.

How was ancient Viking jewelry created?

The Vikings created jewelry by making a wax mold and pouring melted metal into it. The wax mold was broken once the metal had cooled, and the piece was buffed until it shone. This is called the "lost wax" method. Early in their history, the Norse jewelry was straightforward, but later the Vikings created beautiful, intricate pieces.

The Vikings picked up jewelry fashions from other countries and later changed them to their style.

Jewelry was often used as currency

It was a common practice to use jewelry as a form of currency.

Vikings wore arm and neck rings, usually made of silver, from which they would hack pieces off to make payment for goods and services. This type of jewelry is referred to as hack silver.

Discovered hoards reveal extraordinary collections of Viking jewelry

With coins, spectacular arm rings, ingots (metal bars), and lots of fragments of chopped-up pieces - known as 'hacksilver' - the Silverdale Hoard provided a fascinating glimpse into the history of the Vikings in Lancashire.

Silverdale Hoard. Image credit: Museum of Lancashire

A massive 1,000-year-old Viking hoard, known as the Watlington Hoard, unearthed by a metal detectorist in a field in Oxfordshire, UK, contained 186 coins, seven jewelry items, and 15 ingots. Around 1989 21 silver arm rings were unearthed near Huxley in Cheshire County, England, by Steve Reynoldson, who discovered with his metal detector. Many of the rings were decorated with an intricate diagonal cross design, and a few were unfinished. All were flattened down before being buried. It is believed that these pieces were to be melted down and reused or used for trade. The arm rings are believed to be from the first decade of the 10th century AD.

Both men and women wore Viking jewelry.

Vikings decorated almost all kinds of things, including swords, clothing, ships, and houses. Jewelry was worn for adornment and for displaying wealth. It was also a means of exchange to seal friendships and alliances.

Arm and neck rings were trendy, but finger rings were rarely worn before the late Viking Age. Earrings were hardly worn at all. The most common Scandinavian Viking Age jewelry item was women's bronze oval brooches. Necklaces were often hung with souvenirs (odd items picked up from abroad), such as coins and finger rings.

Left: Close-up of the Hon Necklace. Image credit: Wilson, David M. Right: Oval Brooches Graham-Campbell James

An odd characteristic of Viking jewelry was its nearly total lack of set stones. The Hon Necklace is a famous necklace found in a hoard discovered in Hon, Norway, dated to the 9th century. It was a scarce find since Viking hoards usually contained mostly silver objects. The Hon hoard, in contrast, mainly contained objects of gold.

Last, we should mention that Thor's Hammer was nearly always worn as pendants.

Updated on November 16, 2022

Written by  Ellen Lloyd – AncientPages.com

Copyright © AncientPages.com  All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or part without the express written permission of AncientPages.com