Station: [20] Imports and means of trade

The goods shown here were found in Berlin-Spandau and Wollin, but a range of imports have also been verified for Oldenburg:

Millstones from the basalt lava of the Eifel Mountains

Grindstones from the Norwegian shale

Bowls and cooking pots from Norwegian soapstone

Cut stone pearls of Caucasian quartz and carnelian

Spindle whorl of the pink clay shale from the Ukraine

Glazed ceramics from Kiev

Financial settlement of trade in the early Middle Ages is displayed in Cabinet No. 22.

Payment was made in the form of bars, Arabian coins, jewelry or parts of jewelry, so-called chopped-silver. The merchant would chop the respective counter-value of the item from a silver piece. Silver was valued by weight, which is why each long-distance trader had a foldable precision scales with standard weights.

Around 1100, at the time of the Obotrite King Henry, coin currency existed. It was coined in Lübeck and served as a means of payment in the entire north-west Slavic region.