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The oldest town in Denmark ... and Scandinavia
Denmark's oldest town was founded around 700 AD on the northern side of the river Ribe Å where the street Sct. Nicolaj Gade is located today. Back then, the town was known as Ripa. Several meters under the present Sct. Nicolaj Gade, archaeologists have excavated house floors, layers of waste, lost things and other evidence of the people of that time, crafts and trade goods. They have also discovered a plank-built street. Between 705 AD and until the 900s is was the main street cutting through the 65 m wide and more than 200 m long marketplace. Along the street were workshops and stalls. The plots were defined by narrow ditches and wicker fences, and from the marketplace there was easy access to the river.
In case you find it difficult to imagine the Vikings' very busy marketplace, you should visit Ribe VikingeCenter, where we have reconstructed about one fifth of the original marketplace.
The beginning of the marketplace
It is unknown who had the initiative idea to establish the marketplace. Looking at the geography and archaeology, in the 600-700s a number of trading places popped up along the Danish, German and Dutch North Sea coasts which shared a certain Frisian culture. Ribe was the northernmost of these trading places, located close to the border of the Scandinavian area. So it could have been Frisian traders who initiated a seasonal market in Ribe in order to distribute their goods in this area. After a few years, influential Danes probably had an interest in taking over and control the marketplace. The establishment of plots and the use of local coins, the so-called Wodan/monster sceatta, are indications of this.
The marketplace was devided into 40-50 plots, in which the craftsmen and traders could set up their stalls, most likely in return for paying some sort of duty. Excavations in 2018 provide evidence of solid houses on several of the plots as early as in 710. However, it is still a mystery if the houses were lived in all year or perhaps just in the summer.
Crafts and goods
Remnants from workshops dealing with textiles, leather, horn, bone, glass, amber and bronze-casting, to name but a few, have been found. A vast number of imported wares have likewise been found in the marketplace: shards from drinking glasses, whetstones, grindstones, whalebone, rock crystal, jewellery and ceramics. Remains of manure show that livestock were also traded here, and we can also imagine a brisk trade in easy perishable products such as objects made of wood or bark, furs, bread, flour, fish, salt and the like.
A marketplace with its own monetary standard
Presumably most trading involved goods and services, but small silver coins were also in use as means of payment from the very beginning of the marketplace. Excavations have shown that foreign coins were replaced by Ribe’s own coin around 720 AD. Some 150 specimens of the Ribe coin, which was in use until around 800 AD, have been found scattered around the marketplace. Apart from Ribe, the coin has only been found in one of the surrounding villages, which suggests that it was closely linked to the trading that took place in Ribe.
The development of the marketplace
In the middle of the 700s, the plots that used to characterize the marketplace, were almost non-existent. The ground was more uneven (natural) and excavations in 2018 have shown traces of several large structures in the marketplace.
Ribe’s location so close to the North Sea coast was crucial to the development of the town. Goods were carried by water, which created a strong and far-reaching network of commercial towns, and by 800 AD the sailing ship had its breakthrough in the North. Ribe was sort of a bridge between worlds.
It would have been extremely attractive for any craftsman to settle down in Ribe. The town network provided both access to raw materials and customers. Excellent finds of trades like ironsmiths, amber workers, leather workers, comb makers and silversmiths have been made. These craftpeople put down roots in Ribe and stayed for many generations.
There is also evidence of several beadmakers: some smaller, temporary workshops and a larger, permanent one. The raw material (coloured glass mosaics) originated far from Ribe, and the glass beadmakers worked with different combinations of colours. Around 780 AD, mass produced beads from cities like Raqqa (Syria) seem to have arrived in bulk and ousted the local production. The glass beadmaker in Ribe was in a way an early victim of globalisation.