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ARCHAEOLOGY

Unique medieval Venetian coin found in abandoned Swedish port

Archaeologists in Sweden have discovered a gold ducat from early medieval Venice in Elleholm, a once thriving port that has now entirely disappeared.

Published: 4 September 2018 11:06 CEST
Unique medieval Venetian coin found in abandoned Swedish port
The ducat shows St Marcus passing over a standard to the doge Andrea Dandalos. Photo: Blekinge Museum
The ducat was minted during the reign of Doge Andrea Dandalos, who ruled the powerful Italian city state from 1343 to 1354.
 
“To find the first coin ever found in Sweden from the medieval Venice here, suggests it was an international trading port,” Marcus Sandekjer, head of Blekinge Museum, told The Local. 
 
The Archbishop of Lund controlled the city from 1450 right up until the reformation in 1536, when it was passed to the Swedish crown. 
 
“Of course when you find coins from Italy in the Archbishop's city, it's tempting to think that it has something to do with ties to Italy and to the Pope,” Sandekjer said. “But that is just a hypothesis.” 
 
On one side of the coin there is an image of St Marcus passing over a standard to the Doge, and on the other there is an image of the prophet Jesus Christ surrounded by an almond-shaped aureole of light, or Mandorla.
 
The city once took up most of the Elleholm island in the middle of the Mörrumsån river in Blekinge, and included the Sjöborg castle and a church. 
 
“It's a fascinating place, just imagine this little city on an island in the middle of a river,” Sandekjer said. “It was very compact.” 
 
The city was destroyed at least twice, once in 1436 during the Engelbrekt rebellion against the Kalmar Union, and once in 1524 during Søren Norby's Scanian rebellion. 
 
The ongoing dig, a collaboration between the Blekinge Museum and Kulturen, a folk history museum in Lund, is the first on the site since 1924. 
 
The city's disappearance has been linked to the Reformation, which stripped the Archbishop of most of his power, as well as to the development of the nearby port of Karlshamn, and to the changing requirements for a successful trading port. 
 
“This is a small island in the river, upstream, which means they could never go in with ships to the actual island,” Sandekjer explained. “It's a medieval solution for a city to put it upstream.” 
 
As trading volumes increased, ports moved directly to the sea, he said. 
 
Sandekjer said a dendrochrological study of the remains of the bridge to the island had dated it back to 1340, indicating that the site had hosted a port for at least 100 years before it was formally granted city status.   
 
The archaeologists have also found a lead seal from Flanders, dating to the first half of the 14th century. 
 
“It was probably a seal for cloth or clothing,” Sandekjer says. “So that shows us that it was an active place before we knew that it was active.” 

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MONEY

How to protect your Swedish savings when the stock market tumbles

Recent stock market developments have made consumers in Sweden worried about the savings they have invested in the market.

Published: 5 August 2024 14:44 CEST
How to protect your Swedish savings when the stock market tumbles

Stock market volatility can be unsettling, especially when it hits close to home.

On Monday, the Stockholm stock exchange mirrored global market turmoil, with the OMXS index dropping 4.8 percent in morning trading. By 11 am, there was a slight recovery, but the index remained 2.6 percent down.

READ MORE: Stockholm stock exchange opens in the red amid global market jitters

Big names in Swedish industry weren’t spared: Boliden, a major mining company, dropped 3 percent, defence giant Saab fell 1.5 percent, and engineering firm Sandvik declined by 2.6 percent. In the banking sector, SEB took a 2.4 percent hit, while Swedbank dropped 3.6 percent.

This turbulence in the Swedish market came after significant drops in Japan’s Nikkei 225 index, which experienced its most significant one-day fall since the 1987 Black Monday Crash, and similar declines in markets across South Korea, Frankfurt, London, and anticipated losses on Wall Street.

In these uncertain times, many Swedish consumers with money invested in the market wonder whether they should do something to safeguard their savings.

Avoid impulsive decisions, expert warns

Stock market volatility can raise concerns about the safety of your savings, but according to SEB household economist Américo Fernández, there’s no need to panic.

“Should they be worried? I mean, no. I would say that this is how the stock market works: there’s a lot of uncertainty and risk connected,” he told The Local. 

“When you have savings on the global stock exchanges, this will happen, especially when we’ve had at least six months of really, really good returns – maybe even too good. Then, this is a little bit expected.

“But of course, it’s always dramatic when we have such developments in the stock market in just one or two days.”

Slow and steady wins the (investment) race

For those wondering how to protect themselves against such crashes, Fernández emphasised a consistent and steady approach to investing.

“The most common thing, the best strategy for the broad masses, is to save on a monthly basis. And this is what many Swedes do; our surveys show that 9 out of 10 Swedes save on the stock market every month. This is precisely what you should do: invest in a mutual fund, which is quite common in Sweden,” he said.

“In circumstances such as these, you buy more at a lower price, instead of timing the stock market, which is almost impossible, continue your monthly investments through mutual funds. That’s a good way of diversifying your portfolio.”

READ ALSO: Will the krona’s decline stop Riksbank from cutting rates?

Ignore the alarmist headlines

The SEB household economist also advised against reacting hastily to alarming headlines.

“Another thing that households should be aware of is that when you see alarming headlines, you should sit and calmly ride the wave out.

“It’s understandable that a lot of people are affected by herd mentality when we have these negative headlines. Everyone, but especially households with tiny savings, acts and sells, and then they buy again when the headlines are positive, when the stock exchange is at high levels…

“That is the opposite of what you should do. Try to neglect these things and be cool in these circumstances, even though it seems bad and hurts your wallet. However, if it hurts your wallet too much, that might be a signal that you have too much money in the stock market (laughs), which can be common for younger investors. Although they have had it pretty good recently,” he noted.

This advice is not only applicable to Sweden but also relevant across Scandinavia, according to Fernández.

“I think it’s applicable. Across Scandinavia, all Nordic countries save a lot of money on the stock exchange, partially because the pension system isn’t fully funded by the government,” he said.

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