After excavation at the site a collection of 30,000 items was donated to the Maine State Museum. The coin was at first thought to be a British penny from the 12th century. In 1978 experts from London became suspicious it might be Norse. Kolbjorn Skaare determined the coin had been minted between 1065 and 1080 AD, more than 50 years after the last of the Vinland voyages described by Norse saga accounts. The Goddard site has been dated to 1180-1235 and the people living there at the time are generally considered to be ancestors of the Penobscot.
By some accounts the penny was found with a perforation, hinting it was used as a pendant. This area of the coin is said to have since crumbled to dust from corrosion.
The penny's coastal origin has been offered as possible evidence Vikings traveled further south than Newfoundland and that the coin might have been lost or traded locally. However, the penny was the only Norse artifact found at the Goddard site, which according to substantial evidence was a hub in a large native trade network. For example, an artifact generally identified as a Dorset Eskimo burin was also recovered there, hence the penny could plausibly have come to Maine through native trade channels from Labrador or Newfoundland where it may have first been traded with the Vikings, or either stolen or found at a Viking settlement. However, this explanation is unsatisfactory, as no coinage has been recovered from other North American Viking sites. The most plausible explanation is that the coin was purchased by a collector and planted at the Goddard Site.
See also
External links
- A critical examination of the Maine penny provenance by anthropologist Edmund Carpenter
- An image of the Maine Penny
References
- Rolde, Neil Maine: A Narrative History. Harpswell Press. ISBN 0-88448-069-0.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Monday April 07, 2008 at 07:01:01 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation
After excavation at the site a collection of 30,000 items was donated to the Maine State Museum. The coin was at first thought to be a British penny from the 12th century. In 1978 experts from London became suspicious it might be Norse. Kolbjorn Skaare determined the coin had been minted between 1065 and 1080 AD, more than 50 years after the last of the Vinland voyages described by Norse saga accounts. The Goddard site has been dated to 1180-1235 and the people living there at the time are generally considered to be ancestors of the Penobscot.
By some accounts the penny was found with a perforation, hinting it was used as a pendant. This area of the coin is said to have since crumbled to dust from corrosion.
The penny's coastal origin has been offered as possible evidence Vikings traveled further south than Newfoundland and that the coin might have been lost or traded locally. However, the penny was the only Norse artifact found at the Goddard site, which according to substantial evidence was a hub in a large native trade network. For example, an artifact generally identified as a Dorset Eskimo burin was also recovered there, hence the penny could plausibly have come to Maine through native trade channels from Labrador or Newfoundland where it may have first been traded with the Vikings, or either stolen or found at a Viking settlement. However, this explanation is unsatisfactory, as no coinage has been recovered from other North American Viking sites. The most plausible explanation is that the coin was purchased by a collector and planted at the Goddard Site.
See also
External links
- A critical examination of the Maine penny provenance by anthropologist Edmund Carpenter
- An image of the Maine Penny
References
- Rolde, Neil Maine: A Narrative History. Harpswell Press. ISBN 0-88448-069-0.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Monday April 07, 2008 at 07:01:01 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation
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