Thrymsas and sceattas in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Abstract

The earliest Anglo-Saxon coinage, from before the time of Offa of Mercia (757-96), was extremely varied and included many charming designs picturing animals and birds. There are over 150 coin types, struck at as many as 20 independent mint-places from Southampton to York. The coins do not say where or when they were made, but this book attempts to work out answers. Using the evidence of metal detector finds, archaeological excavations and other clues. The Ashmolean Museum has a fine collection of the so-called thrymsas (gold coins) and sceattas (silver coins). They are all shown here in photographs at two times their actual size, to allow the detail of their design and their artistic quality to be fully appreciated. The introduction is illustrated with maps, diagrams and line drawings of coins not included in the Oxford Collection. Designed as a standard work of reference for archaeologists and mediaevalists, this work should also appeal to art historians and coin collectors. This third of three volumes resumes the history of minting in England, in its hey-day of artistic inventiveness and variety. Part four describes the secondary phase of the sceattas in half-a-dozen English regions, lasting from 710, through a debasement, until King Offa of Mercia reformed the coinage by minting his famous pennies, on the new Carolingian model. An appendix gives the results of non-destructive chemical analyses of a large number of specimens by Dr J.P. Northover.

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