A hoard of Early Islamic silver coins discovered near Kaliningrad is offering new evidence for the movement of Abbasid silver into the southeastern Baltic during the early ninth century.
The collection was found in May 2026 by archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences during a survey on the southern shore of the Vistula Lagoon, also known locally as the Kaliningrad Lagoon.
It contains 59 silver dirhams, including 29 complete coins and 30 cut fragments. They were minted between AD 746 and 815 in cities extending from present-day Iraq to Iran and Afghanistan.
One coin belongs to the final years of the Umayyad Caliphate. The rest were issued under the Abbasids, the dynasty that took power following the Abbasid Revolution of AD 749–750.
Silver found at a Prussian settlement
The hoard was recovered from a settlement covering approximately one hectare. Archaeologists found handmade and early wheel-thrown pottery associated with the material culture of the medieval Prussians, the Baltic communities that inhabited the region.
The settlement appears to have been occupied between the eighth and twelfth centuries. Its size and landscape setting were not unusual compared with other sites from the same period.
This context makes the discovery particularly useful. Earlier coin hoards from the Kaliningrad region were often dispersed, incompletely recorded or found without reliable archaeological documentation.
In this case, the researchers were able to establish the relationship between the coins and the settlement, record their exact location and recover the entire known collection. The dirhams were identified by numismatist A.A. Gomzin.
The find does not establish whether the settlement was itself an important trading centre. It does, however, show that imported silver had reached communities living along the Vistula Lagoon by the first decades of the ninth century.
From the last Umayyad caliph to Harun al-Rashid
The oldest coin was minted at Wasit in AD 746 or 747 during the reign of Marwan II, the last Umayyad caliph.
Only a few years later, the Umayyads were defeated by the Abbasid movement. Marwan II was killed in AD 750, and the new rulers shifted the political centre of the caliphate eastward.
The Abbasids founded Baghdad in AD 762 under the official name Madinat al-Salam, meaning the “City of Peace.” Coins from this capital form the largest group in the Kaliningrad hoard.
Among the complete dirhams, issues of Harun al-Rashid dominate. He ruled between AD 786 and 809, when Baghdad developed into one of the largest commercial and political centres of Eurasia.
Twenty-five complete coins were minted in Madinat al-Salam. Another came from Kufa, while three were struck farther east: one at Nishapur in Khurasan and two at al-Muhammadiyya in the Iranian region of Jibal.
The cut fragments have a different composition. Coins issued under al-Mahdi, who ruled from AD 775 to 785, are slightly more common than those of Harun al-Rashid.
They also come from a wider range of mints, including Basra, Kufa, Wasit and Baghdad. The easternmost example was issued at Zaranj, the principal city of historical Sijistan in present-day Afghanistan.
The differences between the complete coins and the fragments suggest that the two groups may have circulated separately before they were combined. The evidence cannot reveal where this happened or how many intermediaries handled the silver before it reached the Baltic.
Dirhams used as coins, bullion and ornaments
The condition of the hoard shows that the dirhams were valued for more than their original function as currency.
Several coins had been pierced, probably so they could be worn as pendants or attached to clothing. Others carried small cuts around their edges, which may have been made to test the quality of the silver.
Many of the fragments were deliberately cut into approximately half-coin portions. In northern and eastern Europe, imported dirhams were often treated as weighed silver rather than exchanged according to their face value.
Whole coins and fragments could therefore circulate together. They might be used in payments, divided into smaller amounts or melted down to produce jewellery.
Large quantities of Islamic silver began reaching northern and eastern Europe toward the end of the eighth century. Some of the earliest dated hoards are known from Tuna in Sweden and Staraya Ladoga in northwestern Russia, where the youngest coins were minted in AD 784 and 787.
The movement of this silver depended on interconnected land, river and maritime routes. Scandinavian merchants were among the groups active in the exchange networks linking the Baltic with Eastern Europe and the Muslim world, although no single route can be assigned to the Kaliningrad coins.
Buried during a period of Abbasid instability
The youngest dirham was minted in AH 199, corresponding to AD 814 or 815. The hoard was therefore probably assembled during the middle of the 810s.
This date falls shortly after the Abbasid civil war between al-Amin and al-Ma’mun, the sons of Harun al-Rashid.
The conflict began following Harun’s death in AD 809. Baghdad was besieged, al-Amin was killed in 813 and al-Ma’mun became caliph, although political unrest continued in several regions.
Coins struck during and immediately after these events eventually reached the southeastern Baltic. Their presence near Kaliningrad reflects the geographic reach of silver circulation rather than direct contact between the settlement and the Abbasid capital.
Only about 20 dirham hoards buried between the AD 780s and 830s are known from the eastern Baltic region, including finds from Sweden, northern Poland, Estonia and the Kaliningrad area.
Two earlier hoards had been reported from the Kaliningrad region. One found near Insterburg, now Chernyakhovsk, contained more than 330 coins. Another group of approximately 150 dirhams was discovered near Kaliningrad in 1945, but only nine were identified and its burial date remains uncertain.
The new discovery is the first regional hoard of this early period to be recovered with a secure archaeological context and a fully documented composition.
It cannot identify the owner of the silver or explain why it was hidden. Its coins nevertheless place a modest Prussian settlement within the wider circulation of Early Islamic silver that connected the Baltic with markets and mints across the Abbasid world.
Sambian Archaeological Expedition of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Cover Image Credit: E.B. Zaltsman, A.A. Gomzin, N.A. Makarov -Sambian Archaeological Expedition of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences