New England Antiquities Research Association

 

logo1 Norse Penny

 Ros Strong, NEARA State Coordinator for Maine

 

April 30, 2010

Among other things, the excellent presentation by Pat Sutherland, Canadian Archaeologist, on the latest information about early contact between Europeans (link) raised a question about the authenticity of the coin found at the Goddard Site in Brooklin, Maine in 1957 by Guy Mellgren. She said it was now accepted as a fake partly (or mainly?) based on the fact that Mellgren had Scandinavian ancestors. Fact: his paternal grandparents were Swedish. Controversy has followed ever since the identification was made in 1979 as a Norse Penny dated 1065 - 1080. Since I had a very minor involvement with the investigation in 2001 by the very respected anthropologist  Edmund Carpenter (link), I felt duty bound to try to get some of the facts out before a new round of speculation gets out of hand.

Below I recount parts of the story that I have personal knowledge of and hope that those interested will take the time to read Carpenter's thorough research. He expresses surprise that more thorough investigations had not been done in all those years.  His opinion seems to be one of "not proven" I personally feel that there are more reasons to believe it is authentic and hope the web can help add some light to many old controversies.

 norse coin backnorse coin front

As I read the posting on NEARA member's Yahoo group about the controversial coin, known by various titles, I realized I should have written more fully in 2003, when I received three copies of Edmund L. Carpenter's publication Norse Penny. (link). I really owe an apology to Carpenter and Richard Gramley, who were most generous to me and NEARA in giving NEARA copies of several handsome publications, and I dropped the ball. I have a fat folder of correspondence with Carpenter in early 2001, when he was researching the subject, and I should have written it all up then and deposited it in the NEARA archives. I plan to do that shortly.

I met Archaeologist Richard Gramley at Maine Archaeological Society meetings, and since he has worked closely with Carpenter, was interested in the fact that I was acquainted with Riley Sunderland when we would attend meetings of the Bar Harbor Historical Society and the Maine Archaeological Society about 1975 – 1982. In a phone call on 12/31/01 from Carpenter, he asked if I knew how Riley, who had died by this time, came into the story and since he seemed genuinely open minded I volunteered to do whatever research I could. I reached his widow, Barbara Sunderland, and had a good conversation on 1/11/02. Sunderland was a retired military historian, a very reserved person, with wide scholarly interests. He was on the mailing list of Seaby Publications although he wasn't a coin collector; he had bought his wife a Charles II medal as a gift.

Carpenter sent me draft proposals of his paper, and I have notes of my responses (I have a longtime habit of keeping notes from important phone conversations and so am not just working from memory).

My observations that are most pertinent concern Sunderland's possible motivation in bringing the coin to prominence. Initially Carpenter assumed that Sunderland was also a coin collector (which he he was not), and in the final version on page 10 shows that he later realized he wasn't. In the draft Carpenter quotes Stephen Cox "he was always enthusiastic about any new 'evidence' of Vikings." In my comments I say "I don't think Riley Sunderland showed any particular enthusiasm for pre-Columbian contact. I know I must have discussed this with him; I recall an artifact (metal) found around Addison, ME, C-shaped, heavy, I must have discussed it with Riley. Neither of us got too excited about it."

I asked that as the coin was donated to the Maine State Museum in 1971, had no one questioned the identification before then? A medieval European coin in Maine? I noted that it was met with acceptance when thought to be English until the 70's and the Viking controversy flared. I pointed out that there is no indication of a hole that would have bolstered the idea that it was worn as an amulet and so could have been traded widely. The missing piece was likely from the custom of valuing coins by weight for the metal content and snipping pieces.

I'm not sure just what has been published recently to revive the question of whether or not the Norse Penny was "planted". When I received three copies of his publication in 2003 I was dismayed see end notes 34 and 35 again repeating that Sunderland was a Viking enthusiast. The damming evidence that must have seemed valid to Carpenter was the citation in end note 35, listing Sunderland as author of a piece published in the Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers, 7, article 174, 1978, Barry Fell editor. I had been unaware of that until then and immediately looked up the one page article, Silver Tetradrachm of Phillip in Montana: Coin Find or Lost Coin?

I think that anyone reading that (which Carpenter probably did not do) will see that Sunderland is explaining the scholarly way to go about solving the question and chiding those who jump to conclusions: "A new and systematic approach is needed; verbal argument will never clarify the problem." So, how much influence did this have on Carpenter's otherwise reasonable research? I should have asked him then and will now try to resume contact.

 

 

All Copyrights © are acknowledged. 

Material reproduced here is for educational and research purposes only.

 

 

 

logo1

New England Antiquities Research Association

Copyright © 2010

Home