Experts believe that elite families literally liquidated their assets, melting down silver goods and turning them into coins to boost the economy and encourage trade among the burgeoning rich farming classes.
Sutton Hoo’s Byzantine silver objects alone weigh just over 22lb (10kg) and could have produced 10,000 early pennies if they had been melted down, the experts said.
Dr Jane Kershaw, from the University of Oxford, said: “These beautiful prestige objects would only have been melted down when a king or lord urgently needed lots of cash. Something big would have been happening, a big social change.
“This was quantitative easing – elites were liquidating resources and pouring more and more money into circulation.
“It would have had a big impact on people’s lives. There would have been more thinking about money and more activity with money involving a far larger portion of society than before.”
‘Evolving economic conditions’
Experts at the University of Cambridge believe the sudden surge in coins marks an important social shift in which…
