In 1957, an amateur archaeologist working at a Native American site in Maine discovered one confusing tax: a 900-year-old Norse silver coin dating to late Viking Age (AD 793 to 1066).
The artifact, sometimes called the “Maine Penny,” is now in the Maine State Museum. The discovery has raised a number of questions — mainly, how did it get there, and does its presence in Maine mean the Viking reached the Pine Tree State?
Sign up for our newsletter
Sign up for our weekly Life’s Little Mysteries newsletter to get the latest mysteries before they hit the web.
Norse sagas tell of Viking voyages to North America, including trips to a place they called “Vinland” (meaning “wineland”), where grapes were said to grow. While grapes grow in Maine, archaeologists have not found any settlements or artifacts from the Viking Age there, except for the crown. But many experts have weighed in on the matter through scientific journal articles and books.
What is the Maine Penny?
The coin, which researchers generally agree is authentic, was minted during the reign of Olaf III, who was king of Norway from c. 1066 to 1093, Gordon Campbella professor emeritus of Renaissance studies at the University of Leicester in the UK, wrote in his book “Norse America: The Story of a Founding Myth” (Oxford University Press, 2021). In 1979, Norwegian numismatist Kolbjorn Skaare dated the coin to sometime between 1065 and 1080, Campbell noted.
The coin is in poor condition and some of the engravings are difficult to see. One side of the coin has a cross with what appears to be a circle surrounding it. The other side is badly damaged, with only a few visible lines. The lines may once have formed a human figure depicting Olaf III.
The coin was found in the coastal city of Brooklin at what is now known as the Goddard site, a Native American trading post that was in use in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, Campbell wrote. The coin has a puncture mark through it, so it could have been used as a pendant. It is also worn and chipped, suggesting that it may have passed through many hands over a long period of time before ending up in Maine.
How did the coin get to Maine?
The scholars Live Science interviewed tended to believe the coin reached Maine through Native American trade networks.
“The position of the Maine State Museum is that the coin reached the Goddard site through down-the-line trading,” Andrew Beauprécurator of archaeological collections at the Maine State Museum, told LiveScience in an email. “Goddard has been determined to be a Native American trading center. The Norse coin is not the only artifact that has been traced to the Canadian Maritime Sub-Arctic,” a region that stretches from the Labrador Sea to the Northwest Territories. Other finds at Goddard from this northern area include indigenous stone tools “that have been traced to Newfoundland/Labrador,” he said.
There “is currently no valid archaeological evidence that Norse people visited or settled Maine,” Beaupré said. However, he noted that the Vikings could have sailed down the coast of Maine from Newfoundland in the 11th century.
Svein Gullbekka professor at the Cultural History Museum at the University of Oslo who has studied the coin in depth agreed that the most likely explanation is that it arrived in Maine when indigenous people traded with each other.
“I believe this 11th-century Norwegian coin provides solid evidence for cultural and economic contacts between Native Americans and Inuit and Norse people,” Gullbekk told LiveScience in an email. In “my view, I believe it followed Native American routes, presumably used as a piece of jewelry, rather than a monetary item.”
Joel Andersonan associate professor of history at the University of Maine, takes a similar view. “I think the ‘Native American Trade Route’ hypothesis is the most plausible,” Anderson told LiveScience in an email. He knows of no other evidence for Vikings in Maine. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility,” he said, “but the available evidence does not support such a conclusion.”
