famous caliph Haroun alRashid, from whose court came the stories of the
One Thousand and One Nights.Closer examination of the coins, however,
raised some suspicions. They were all identical–the same stamps, the same
relationships between back and front, the same diameter and the same
weight. All a little too good to be true...and they all weighed just a tiny bit
less than realdarāhim. The metal of the coins was analysed. It was not
silver, but instead was composed of lead and tin. They could be seen, on
close examination, not to be struck coins, but cast copies.
Another example has also been found in Hedeby, which suggests that the
counterfeiter was a local resident, and as the coins did not seem to have gone
into circulation, his workshop was probably nearby. Perhaps he was about to
be found out, and tried to get rid of the evidence by throwing the coins into the
harbour. The coins must have been made after 807/8, but before 900, because
after that date, coins were not taken at face value, but weighed alongside hack
silver, when the lighter weight would quickly have betrayed their illegal
origins. The find site was under an extension of the harbour, whose date gives
us a small window for the crime–between 886 and 900! But we do not know
if the forger was ever caught.
A human skull was also found in Hedeby harbour, close to the shipwreck
and further reports of two skeletons in association with the ship were also
made by divers although their positions made it unlikely that they were
Figure 16. The Hedeby chestDARK AGE CRIMES