The Viking ”Maine Penny” Mystery
Source: thornews.com
In 1957, during his second year of digging at the Goddard site; a large prehistoric Indian trade village in Penobscot Bay on the central Maine coast, local resident and amateur archaeologist Guy Mellgren found a small silver coin. The coin is later identified by experts as a Norse silver penny dating to the reign of Olaf Kyrre, king of Norway 1067–1093 AD. Extensive archaeological investigation of the site has revealed no evidence for a Norse settlement.Leif Ericson (about 970 – 1020 AD) is regarded as the first European to land in North America. According to the Sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement in Vinland, tentatively identified with the Norse L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day Canada. The sagas also tell that Leif Ericson’s discovery was followed by other expeditions and that the Vikings met Indians whom they called “Skraelinger”. It is not unlikely that the Vikings brought silver coins as trade items.
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