Two English 'Lamb of God' coins discovered in Denmark.

Two 'Lamb of God' coins issued by the English King Æthelred the Unready around the year 1009 AD have been discovered in Denmark, according to a press release issued by the National Museum of Denmark on 29 April 2026. The coins were both uncovered by metal detectorists, one in the north of Jutland and one in the south.

An English 'Lamb of God' coin discovered by a metal detectorist in northern Jutland. Søren Greve/National Museum of Denmark.

The Lamb of God coins were a special edition coin produced by Æthelred the Unready as part of an attempt to obtain divine protection for his kingdom, along with a series of religious ceremonies, fasts, and penances. Unlike regular Saxon coins, which typically had the king's head on one side and a cross on the other, they had a 'Lamb of God' sign on one side, which comprised a Lamb pierced by a cross, a symbol for Jesus, and a Dove on the other, a symbol of the Holy Spirit.

An English 'Lamb of God' coin discovered by a metal detectorist in southern Jutland. Søren Greve/National Museum of Denmark.

The crisis which provoked these measures was the invasion of England by Viking raiders, mostly from Denmark. However, this was did not prove to be an effective method of defence, with southern England being ravaged by the armies of Thorkell the Tall between 1009 and 1013, and Sweyn Forkbeard launching a full-scale invasion in 1013 which forced Æthelred into exile. Sweyn Forkbeard died in 1014, allowing Æthelred to briefly regain his thrown, though he lost it again in 1016 to Sweyn's son, Cnut.

While the coins failed to save Æthelred's reign, they were apparently very popular with the invading Vikings. Of the 30 known examples, only 4-5 have been found in England, with the remainder discovered in Scandinavian and Baltic countries, the majority with piercings which suggest the Vikings wore them as pendants.

Having conquered England in 1016, Cnut succeeded to the throne of Denmark in 2018, following the death of his brother Harald II. In 1026 Olaf Haraldsson, King of Norway, mounted an invasion of Denmark while Cnut was in England, starting a series of wars which led to Olaf's death in 1030, and Cnut installing his wife, Ælfgifu of Northampton, as regent of Norway. 

Having unified England, Denmark, and Norway into a single state (referred to as the North Sea Empire by modern historians), Cnut set about consolidating and unifying his empire. This included the introduction of silver coinage on the English model to Denmark and Scandinavia. Prior to this, coins had not been directly used as legal tender in this area, silver measured by weight used as the standard medium of exchange. However, the innovation appears to have been quickly adopted, with coins accepted as an easier way to do business.

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Hoard of medieval silver coins found on Visingsö Island, Sweden.

Archaeologists from the Jönköping County Museum carrying out surveying work ahead of the installation of geothermal heating system in a church on Visingsö, an island on Lake Vättern in south-central Sweden, have uncovered a pair of medieval graves, one of which contained a hoard of silver coins. The coins were found close to the foot of the skeleton of a man thought to have been between 20 and 25 when he died. Similar finds are common in earlier, pre-Chistian burials in Scandinavia, but their inclusion in what is thought to have been a Christian burial is very unusual.

A hoard of silver coins discovered on Visingsö Island, Sweden. Jönköping County Museum.

The hoard comprises 170 coins of a type known as silver bracteates, which had a stamped motif on one side only, which were common in Germany and Scandinavia after between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. These coins retained their value for only a limited time, then had to be taken back to the issuing authority and restamped, which was intended as a way of ensuring that money continued to circulate and couldn't be hoarded. The coins in the Visingsö hoard are thought to date to between 1150 and 1180, and contain many stamps not previously seen by modern archaeologists.

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A hoard of coins from the Indus Valley City of Mohenjo Daro.

The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization in northern South Asia, contemporary with the Old Kingdom in Egypt and the Sumerian Civilization of Mesopotamia. Spread across what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northwest India, the Indus Valley Civilization is generally considered to have built the first cities in South Asia, as well as a major centre of Bronze Age technological innovation, although its language has never been translated, so that much about the civilization remains a mystery. The largest of the cities constructed by the Indus Valley people was Mohenjo Daro, located in the  Larkana District of Sindh Province, Pakistan. Mohenjo Daro has founded around 2500 BC, and at its height had a population of about 40 000. It was abandoned in about 1700 BC, along with the other major cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, although why this happened remains as mysterious as many other things about the culture.

Ruins aof the city of Mohenjo Daro in Sindh, Pakistan. Saqib Qayyum/Wikimedia Commons.

On Wednesday 15 November 2023, a team of conservators working on the western side of Mohenjo Daro stupa uncovered a jar of copper coins, the first coins uncovered at the site since 1931, although it is unlikely that they date back to the Indus Valley Civilization, which is not known to have produced coins. The hoard unearthed in 1931 comprised 4348 copper coins dating from the Kushan Empire, which lasted from about 30 AD till its conquest by the Gupta Empire in 375 AD, although its coins would have remained in circulation somewhat longer. 

A pot of copper coins discovered at Mohenjo Daro in Sindh Province, Pakistan, on 15 November 2023. Saeed Memon/Dawn.

The coins together weigh about five and a half kilograms, and are currently fused together into a single amalgam. It is hoped that it will be possible both to separate them and clean them sufficiently to make out the inscriptions on their surfaces, although this is likely to take some time. It is planned that once prepared, they will be placed on display at the Mohenjo Daro Museum in Larkarna.

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Hoard of ancient and medieval coins unearthed in Japan.

Archaeologists carrying out a survey at a site in the Sojamachi District of Maebashi, the capital city of Gunma Prefecture, in the northern Kantō region of Japan ahead of a construction project have unearthed a hoard of about 100 000 coins, some of which are thought to be over 2000 years old. The coins were buried in 1060 bindles, each of which contained about 100 coins and was wrapped in straw matting, and are thought to have been buried during the Kamakura Period (1185-1333), during which Japan suffered a number of civil conflicts. 

Some of the bundles of coins dug up in Maebashi, Japan. Eiichi Tsunozu/The Asahi Shimbun.

The majority of the coins are badly corroded, and need to be cleaned and examined very carefully. So far only 344 of the coins have been fully examined, with 44 types of coin so far identified. The most remarkable of these appears to be a Chinese Ban Liang coin (so called because it has the symbols Ban Liang, 半兩, meaning 'half tael' stamped upon it). These were the first coins produced in a unified Chinese Empire under the Qin Dynasty, from about 378 BC to about 249 BC, and then by the Western Han Dynasty until about 118 BC. The example in the Sojamachi hoard is thought to date from about 175 BC, and is 2.3 cm in diameter and a millimetre thick, with a square hole in the middle measuring 7 mm to a side.

A Chinese Ban Liang (半兩) coin thought to date from 175 BC, discovered at Maebashi in Japan. Eiichi Tsunozu/The Asahi Shimbun.

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Pre-Roman British coin discovered in Hampshire, England.

A pre-Roman coin discovered by metal-detectorist Lewis Fudge in the Test Valley, Hampshire, England, in March 2023 was sold by auction house Spink on 28 September, for £20 400. The coin is made of gold and thought to date from between 50 BC and 30 BC, and bears the name of a little-known ruler called 'Esunertos'. The coin features a seven spoked wheel and three rows of interlocked, outward-facing crescents as well as the name Esunertos on one side, while on the other is what appears to be a stylised horse, with a mandible-like jaw and three tails, as well as another wheel.

A pre-Roman British coin sold by auction house Spink on 28 September 2023. Spink.

Little is known about Esunertos (or Iisuniirtos), other than that he is thought to have ruled an area west of the Thames in the second half of the first century BC. Three previous coins with the inscription have been found at Danebury Hill Fort, also in Hampshire, about 19 km to the northwest of Winchester, which may have served as a seat to this ruler. The name 'Esunertos' appears to mean 'mighty as Esos' or 'strength of Esos', and is known to have been used in Roman Britain and Gaul. The Celtic god Esos is thought to have been worshipped across what is now southern Britain, northern France, and western Germany. There are two known images of Esos, in both of which he is cutting branches from a tree with an axe in wetland scenes, suggesting that he was associated with this environment. The Roman poet Lucan claimed that Human sacrifices to Esos were tied to trees and flogged to death, but this may have been propaganda. 

An image of the Celtic god Esos, from the 'Pilar of the Boatmen', a monumental Roman column erected in Lutetia (modern Paris) in the first century AD, and now in the collection of the Musée National du Moyen Age. Wikimedia Commons. 

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