Viking Silver & Bronze Knit Necklace w/ Thor's Hammer

Northern Europe, Viking or Norse culture, ca. 800 to 1100 CE. An incredible long knitted silver chain ending in two cast terminals with small stamped and repeated triangular designs; on a narrow ring with coiled ends is a heavy Thor's hammer amulet, also known as Mjolnir. The hammer is stamped with the same motifs as the terminals, and three small, inlaid bronze discs and a bronze sheet band around the "handle" of the hammer provide further decoration. Narrow silver wires, twisted around themselves, connect the hammer to the chain. Size of hammer: 1.55" W x 2.55" H (3.9 cm x 6.5 cm); length of chain: 28" L (71.1 cm)

Small Thor's hammers were worn as religious amulets throughout the Viking era, usually made of silver and usually hung on silver chains. Some even made it to the Christian era; there is a famous example of a Thor's hammer amulet from Fossi, Iceland, that has been turned into a cross. The chain itself, meanwhile, is a style of knitwork done with thin silver wire that seems to have originated with the Vikings. The important Viking metalworking shops correspond to their great trading ports and proto-urban centers - Birka, Helgo, Sigtuna, and Lund in Sweden, Ribe, Haithabu (Hedeby), and Fyrkat in Denmark, and Kaupang and Trondheim in Norway. Silver was the principal currency of the Viking world, which stretched from Russia to northern Canada at the height of their influence. In many places, the Vikings kept silver not as coins, but as jewelry, a wearable currency form that was not subject to the authority of a monarch or mint. One of the most common archaeological finds from the Viking period is a hoard of metal objects, often buried in the earth or deposited in bodies of water, like river beds. These are found in great quantities throughout the British Isles and the Nordic countries.

Provenance: private New York, USA collection

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#129286

Aged patina / tarnish on surface. Slight bending to form, especially to the wires that are holding the hammer to the chain. The chain itself is in very nice condition, with no breaks to the links. Small loss from one side of hammer.