Maine Penny - Norse Origin

Norse Origin

In 1978, experts from London considered that it might be Norse. Kolbjorn Skaare of the University of Oslo determined the coin had been minted between 1065 and 1080 AD and widely circulated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Goddard site has been dated to 1180-1235, within the circulation period of pennies of this type. The people living there at the time are generally considered to be ancestors of the Penobscot. While the date is around two hundred years after the last of the Vinland voyages described by Norse sagas it is well within the period during which the Norse lived in Greenland and could have potentially visited North America.

By some accounts the penny was found with a perforation, hinting it was used as a pendant. This area of the coin is said to have since crumbled to dust from corrosion.

The penny's coastal origin has been offered as evidence either that the Vikings traveled further south than Newfoundland or that the coin might have been traded locally. However, the penny was the only Norse artifact found at the site, which according to substantial evidence was a hub in a large native trade network. For example, a single artifact generally identified as a Dorset Eskimo burin was also recovered there, and may support the idea that both the burin and the penny could plausibly have come to Maine through native trade channels from Viking sources in Labrador or Newfoundland.

It has been suggested that the explanation that the coin was either brought by the Vikings or traded from a Viking site is weak because no coinage has been recovered from the North American Viking site of L'Anse aux Meadows. However, this site is around two centuries earlier than the Maine coin site, and was subject to an orderly evacuation.

On the other hand, this Maine penny and other similar coins of this era were available on the open market in 1957; therefore Mellgren could have the means and the opportunity to plant the coin at the site, or could be deceived by someone else planting the coin – though it is unclear what the motive may have been.

The identity of the Maine Penny as an Olaf Kyrre silver penny is not in doubt. While the Maine Museum and the Smithsonian website favour the view that it was found at the site and is therefore evidence of Viking presence on the North American continent, the possibility that it may be a hoax has been raised. An assessment of the validity of the find by Edmund Carpenter concluded: "Not proven". There are enough questions regarding the provenance of the coin to leave its archaeological significance unclear.