Four coins make the Viking hoard in Norway truly unique. "Very exciting"
"This marks the birth of the monetary system we still use today,’ says professor.
One of the Harald Hardrada coins from the Mørstad Hoard. One side features a triquetra, a symbol of the Christian Trinity. The other side bears a cross, as was common in other Christian countries.(Photo: Innlandet County Municipality)
The largest Viking Age coin hoard ever discovered in Norway has now surpassed 4,000 coins.
"What's special about this find is, naturally, the sheer size of the hoard," says Svein Harald Gullbekk, professor and coin expert at the Museum of Cultural History.
But four of these more than 4,000 coins are especially remarkable.
"This is the kind of detail that excites me on a slightly nerdy level," says Gullbekk. "The hoard contains four Norwegian Harald Hardrada coins in a collection that was most likely buried shortly after he became king."
The four early coins, issued by the last Viking king Harald Hardrada, currently date the hoard to sometime after 1046–47.
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"The Mørstad Hoard is likely an important piece in understanding how the Norwegian coin system was first introduced," says Gullbekk. "This marks the birth of the monetary system we still use today."
Svein Harald Gullbekk and parts of the Mørstad Hoard. Until now, coin experts have mainly studied treasure finds uncovered in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Over the coming century, researchers will be able to study the hoard discovered in April this year.(Photo: Tea Kristiansen / Museum of Cultural History)
From weighing silver to paying with coins
Before Harald Hardrada, all coins in Norway came from abroad. What gave them value was that they were made of silver.
The Vikings weighed and paid with silver.
But Hardrada had spent many years in Byzantium before becoming king. Inspired by the monetary system there, he wanted to introduce the same system in Norway.
After becoming king in 1046, he quickly began issuing Norwegian coins.
Researchers identify the four coins in the Mørstad hoard as belonging to this earliest group based on their inscriptions and style, but also their silver content. The first Harald Hardrada coins contained more silver than later versions.
And only four of them have been found.
Replaced foreign coins with Norwegian ones
"This is one of the patterns we see in treasure finds from Hardrada's period," explains Gullbekk. "In the earliest hoards, we find a single Harald Hardrada coin, while the rest are foreign."
By the time Harald Hardrada died in 1066, however, most foreign coins had been replaced by the king’s own Norwegian currency. Around two-thirds of the coins were Norwegian, while the remainder were foreign.
His sons, Kings Magnus Haraldsson and Olaf Kyrre, completed their father's project.
"Kyrre continued and finalised the process of establishing a national coin system. He removed most foreign coins, as well as his father's Norwegian coins, from circulation and replaced them with his own," says Gullbekk. "At that point, almost only the king’s own coins remained."
It was metal detectorists Vegard Sørlie and Rune Sætre who uncovered the treasure in a field near Rena in Eastern Norway. “The detectorists, working together with archaeologists from Innlandet, handled this in an exemplary manner,” says Gullbekk.(Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB)
A radical change
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Jon Anders Risvaag, a researcher and coin expert at NTNU, has followed the Mørstad Hoard through media reports.
"The size of this hoard is simply spectacular," says Risvaag. "It's extremely unusual. This is the largest discovery made during my lifetime."
Risvaag confirms that the four Harald Hardrada coins belong to one of the earliest known deposits from Harald’s reign.
"What we're seeing here is the beginning of a radical transformation in how people paid for goods in Norway. Society moved away from viewing silver itself as the source of value and towards accepting a nominal value – meaning that the coin is worth what we say it's worth. That's a major shift," he says.
Risvaag has mainly researched coin finds from Trondheim dating from the 11th century through to the 17th century. The nature of the finds changes after Harald Hardrada.
“Suddenly, we start finding individual coins in the towns, in places where market stalls once stood. And they were being used as actual coins. They weren’t tested for their silver content," he says.
Apart from Byzantium, Norway was the first place in Northern Europe to switch to coins with a low silver content, Risvaag explains. It was not until around 1100 that this became the norm across the rest of the continent.
A closer look at Norway’s five largest coin hoards
At the time of writing, more than 4,000 coins found at Mørstad near Rena in Åmot municipality in 2026. Dated to around 1046-1047.
1,849 coins found at Årstad in Egersund around 1836-1843. Dated to after 1029.
Around 964 coins were discovered on Dronningens gate in Trondheim in 1950. Dated to after 1035. This hoard was left uncovered overnight, says Jon Anders Risvaag from NTNU, giving people the chance to pocket coins. Authorities later introduced an amnesty, and 69 coins were returned. Risvaag suspects the original hoard was larger than the official count suggests.
776 coins found at Foldøy, Jelsa in Rogaland in 1907. Dated to after 1051.
587 coins found at Slethei, Sola in Rogaland in 1866. Dated to after 1018.
Risvaag says that Harald Hardrada most likely produced coins in
two locations. Most were minted in Trondheim, while the remainder were produced in Hamar.
"Some of the coins contain very clear references to where they were minted. It will be fascinating to learn which types appear in the Mørstad Hoard," he says.
Risvaag also finds the location of the discovery particularly intriguing.
"The site appears to be remote, away from major gathering places and outside the main travel routes. But there must probably have been some kind of transportation route through this area. What researchers eventually uncover about the background of the site will be very exciting to follow," he says.
A silver coin is lifted from the ground. The largest coin hoard from the Viking Age now contains more than 4,000 coins.(Photo: Innlandet County Municipality)
The Viking Age coins are cleaned with water before being sealed in bags and labelled with coordinates.(Photo: Innlandet County Municipality)
Valuable sources of information
The early Harald Hardrada coins may reveal how these coins were distributed during the earliest phase of Norway's monetary system – and how society transitioned from weighing silver to using money.
According to Gullbekk, only around 15-20 of the very earliest coins have previously been found, and about 250 of those that came later.
Similar discoveries have been made in Western Norway and around the Oslofjord region, but never before in Østerdalen.
Of all the surviving historical material from the mid-11th century, coins are among the easiest objects to date and place geographically, Gullbekk explains. Researchers often know both when and where a coin was minted.
"This hoard will allow us to analyse economic, social, and cultural networks in the late Viking Age and early Middle Ages in far greater detail," says Gullbekk.
"We will gain a better understanding of what the monetary system looked like at that time and which parts of the country formed part of the coin system Harald Hardrada established," he says.
The Mørstad Hoard continues to grow larger with each day of searching. The photograph was taken by Ole Erik Hørstad, mayor of Åmot municipality and owner of the land where the treasure was found.(Photo: Ole Erik Hørstad)
More may still be found
While archaeologists continue excavating the field, researchers at the coin cabinet are documenting and cataloguing the discoveries.
Every coin will become part of the collection and will be published in databases so they are available for future research. The Museum of Cultural History has also recently promised a public exhibition in the near future.
"There is only one thing that could make us even more enthusiastic. That would be finding even more Harald coins," says Gullbekk. "Or, as I sometimes joke, imagine if we were to find Norway’s very first coin."
The first silver coin minted in Norway was Olaf Tryggvason’s penny, struck in Nidaros between 995 and 998.
"Coins of this type have been found in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany and are displayed in museums there, but none have ever been found in Norway," says Gullbekk. "This hoard is exactly the kind of discovery that could potentially contain an Olaf Tryggvason penny. We're still waiting! "
