Piece of lead with coin imprint, Sigtuna, circa 1000–1020
Sweden’s oldest coin workshop was discovered in Sigtuna in 1990, in a place near the royal demesne where the king lived when he was in town. We know this was a coin workshop because artefacts from the minting process were found there, and the most important find was this tiny piece of lead dating back to the early 11th century. It bears the imprint of a coin. Lead was used in coin production to test and clean the coin dies (tools used to mint coins).
This coin workshop produced lots of fine things, not just coins. The fact that the coin workshop was so close to the royal demesne shows just how interested the king was in coinage.
