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90 The Viking Age in Denmark

minting ceases at-Hedeby in about 980, at the same time as the production ofjewellery. Indeed it is an unanswered ąuestion to what extent craft activities survived the tum of the millennium and the decline in settlement area.

Among foreign imports, iron also occurs, in spite of the availability of local bog-ore; apparently the Hedeby iron is Swedish in origin and of a high quality due to the Iow content of phosphoric acid.⁶² Soap-stone vessels, excellent for cooking, are derived from Norway; from the Rhineland came ceramics and lava quemstoncs, finished on the site and in need of no further trimming. By the tenth century, only ccrtain types of western pots appear, in particular those that might merely be containers for other goods, perhaps winę. Western Europę also supplied weapons, glass and jewellery, much of it of Frankish origin, while insular trinkets are rare.

Raw materials other than iron must also have been imported to Hedeby - for example, gold, silver, bronze and tin - but not necessarily in the shape of ingots. One ninth-century written source (Ottar) refers to furs and other products of Scandinavia,⁶³ while the high-quality ‘Frisian’ cloth, along with silk, occurring in the Viking Age graves of Denmark, are also likely commodities. In another ninth-century source a market for slaves is mentioned at Hedeby/⁵⁴

The important ‘imports’ comprised food, salt, hides, wool, antler and w^rood; in addition, the inhabitants of the province probably supplied workpower for various activities. The planned lay-out and defence of the site were in the hands of petty kings, as in the case of the Swedish dynasty, and the king’s representativc, the ‘comes’ (count) of the ninth-century written sources. These persons connect the town with its wider social and economic environment for special supplies and protection in return for tribute, and tax and toll on the activities. Whether the officials were residents of Hedeby proper is unknown, but it is not likely. The excavations have not revealed larger and morę substantial buildings for such use. The same goes for the Christian officials and institutions, including, incidentally, the tenth-century bishop who temporarily left his seat in 1(XX) A.D., at the time of the decline of the site, owing to ‘unrest’.⁶⁵

To the north of the bottom of the Sli inlet lies the medicval, and modern, city of Slesvig. Recent excavations have uncovered a mid-eleventh century settlement on the waterfront including a wharf and sonie traces of buildings.⁶⁶ One of the stone churches of the city also dates back to this period, and we may have a continuity between Hedeby and Slesvig, though it is important to remember that the hey-day of Hedeby ended at least fifty years before the settlement of Slesvig.

Compared with Hedeby the archaeological rcmains from Ribe are scarce.⁶⁷ On the Ribe river, opposite the medieval city centre round the cathedral, are found substantial deposits of the eighth and ninth centuries. The excavated areas are smali, and so structures are few, amounting to pieces of walls, in right angles to each other and madę of light posts and planks with wickerwork, like the houses of the central Hedeby site. A well and parts of a pit-house are also recorded, in addition to fireplaces and floors of stamped clay, reflecting a permanent settlement. The deposits are thick by Danish standards, measuring morę than one metre, and have given a large number of finds, including many west European imports, ceramics, lava quern-stones of the Rhineland, whetstones, glass, coins (cighteen specimens (Sceatta), from various parts of the habitation deposits, probably indicating a regular use of coins). Other imports are limited to a fragment of a soap-stone vessel from Norway. In addition, there is good evidence ofiron-working, bronze-casting ofjewellery, some of it even gilded, production of beads of glass and amber, the making of shoes, combs and other objects of bonę and antler, weaving and, perhaps, potting too. A large assemblage of animal bones clcarly fits Ribe into the town spectrum of Viking Age settlements, along with Hedeby, Arhus and Lund, all having a high percentage of the meat animals cattle and pigs.

The parallcl to the central site of Hedeby is striking, and with the conternporary eighth-century south settlement in mind, Ribe is the most organised township of its period. The reason may be the direct access to western Europę at a time when the local trade in Scandinavia still took a traditional form and was on a smali scalę. Already by 4(X) the Dankirke settlement, a few kilometres to the south-west of Ribe, has strong western connections.⁶⁸ In this light, it is the transit traffic between the North Sea and the Baltic which makes Hedeby the largest town in Scandinavia in the Viking period. The many visitors would also be important buyers of the local craft production and add to the size of the market. A recent geological survey in the centre of Arhus has shown that the shape of the peninsula, carrying the first town, was roundish, suggesting a circular wali with protection from both land and the open sea.⁶⁹ Only minor sections through the rampart, raised round the very first settlement, has been excavated; it encloscd a smali number of pit-houses.

Arhus w^ras apparently a planned township from the start in the early tenth century with the building of the wali, which had a diameter, like the later Aggersborg fortress, of about 250 metres.⁷⁰ The buildings (Fig. 25), howevcr, behind the plank-covered Street, following the inner side of the wali, are not laid out according to a strict plan. The basie element seems to be a solid, rectangular pit-house of the ‘town-type’ with posts in the corners, earth benches and a fireplace. Ncxt to this is a rectangular and lighter pit-house with stave-walls, but without a fireplace, or, a similar roundish building with wickerwork walls, of the same type as the normal pit-house in rural settlements. The solid house has good parallels in the Hedeby south settlement and