Viking-Age hoard reveals trade between England and the Islamic World
heritagedaily.com68 points by bookofjoe 6 days ago
68 points by bookofjoe 6 days ago
When King Offa of England's Mercia decided to mint some coins, the coins which came to everyone's minds were the islamic dinars.
That's why his coins were identical to Dinars, with OFFA REX next to the islamic shahada.
https://artofthemiddleages.com/files/original/e5a8cb4eadae18...
https://www.islamic-awareness.org/history/islam/coins/dinar1
Gold coins pretty much disappeared from Western Europe in the early middles ages, the Byzantine Empire and the the Islamic states were pretty much the only significant source of gold for a time so that makes sense in a way.
Interestingly enough the first coins minted in the Islamic Caliphate and based on the Roman Solidus actually had portraits (they just removed the Christian symbols) on them for a while:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_Umayyad_gold_dinar,...
Weird title, makes it seem like a reveleation. There have been numerous Viking treasures discovered in Sweden with traces from the the Islamic world and it's well known that they were all over England as well.
There was even a movie with Antonio Banderas about it! (The 13th Warrior)
In the TV series Vikings they reach the Muslim kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula
There is an interesting book about Viking trade connections, "River Kings" by Cat Jarman.
This brings to my mind the rune graffitis found on the Hagia Sophia mosque: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_inscriptions_in_Hagia_So...
At the time the graffiti was carved, it was a church and the carver was likely a Viking mercenary in the Varangian Guard.
Seeing it a few years ago was a very strange feeling. It is both small and inconsequential as a thing, yet making me feel deeply moved and making me think about and connect somehow with history in a way that a statue of an emperor does not.
Someone might find this interesting. Viking is a term for Scandivanians in a specific time-period, and it's also a term for pirates from the wider North European area in that specific period, because, interestingly, it wasn't only the Scandinavians that raided, but people living East of the Baltic sea raided the Western Baltic too. In other words, Vikings were getting Vikinged by non-Vikings, thus making them Vikings too. To be less tongue in cheek, there were a lot of similarities between the Western and Eastern Baltic cultures: both pagan, both had runes and somesuch, built similar ships, so as to say they had more in common than the raiding.
Viking just meant raider/pirate.
> both pagan, both had runes and somesuch, built similar ships, so as to say they had more in common than the raiding.
No, they did not have runes. The runes were only used by various Germanic peoples. As far as I know the Baltic and Finnic pagans lacked a written language.
By the way, Viking is a historian term, as far as I know. It was not used in the period or at least not as it is used now. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Also, surely you wouldn't call (now or then) Mediterranean-born pirates Vikings.
Not an expert on the matter, just a Swede but it was used about pirates in general from any country in medieval Swedish and I think Icelandic. And it was used in period English and Frisian sources too, though there it might not have been about all pirates. It is also on a couple of rune stones but on the one I know of it is used to refer to the activity of going raiding.
I've seen archaelogical artefacts from East Baltic graves with runes. The commentary in the exhibition stated that runes and rune-related shamanic practices were imported across the Baltic sea. I'm not a historian, I'm only conveying what I've been told by enthusiasts or casually ran into.
I suspect it might be neopagan wishful thinking. There is no knowledge of any such practices among the Norse at least. There is some weak connection between runes and magic through Odin but from what we know runes were used for every day stuff like accounting, who owns an object, contracts and personal letters. And of course the mostly Swedish practice of praising the exploits of your relatives on rune stones.
Sigtuna got burned down by Finnish, Karelians, Estonians or Estonian Vikings, and this was 1187...
I wouldn't be surprised if Stockholm started out as an attempt to protect the cities around Lake Mälaren from raids. It is not known why the city is called Stockholm but one theory is that ot comes from logs driven into the lake to control who goes in and out of the lake.
Yes, and I think this specific incident may have motivated it, since it was founded not that much later.
What is 'pagan' here?
Everything before abrahamic religions is pagan or something more specific?
That's a somewhat sad question, because we hardly know. Not enough written record exists and "paganism" was increasingly outlawed during the past millenia to the point where we're out of people that had it handed down to them. The missionaries doing most of the recording were also the ones actively suppressing its survival. I'm aware of at least one revival movement that was active during the last 50 years, but the main instigator seems to have died without leaving a meaningful succession, and thus the preservation may very well have failed. Unless someone invents a time-machine a la Assassin Creed.
The etymology of the word 'pagan' originally meant hillbillies / dumb country people. It was a slur because the towns and cities adopted Christianity before the country people did. So, 'pagan' typically means the pre-Christian religions of Europe.
In the context of European Antiquity and Middle Ages - this means the original polytheist religions of the Romans, the Greeks, the Slavs, the Celts, the Germanic people...
Yes, from the context of Abrahamic religion and the cultures descended from it, all religions and cultures which are not Abrahamic are by definition pagan.
this sounds about right - the same yardstick was used by the British to define Hindus in India - people who are neither christian nor muslim.
> Viking is a term for Scandivanians in a specific time-period
Perhaps but culturally it's more widely used as a term for scandivanians "pirates/invaders" of said era. It is a well known term. Hell, we even have a football team named in their honor.
> it wasn't only the Scandinavians that raided
Did anyone say it was only the scandinavians who raided? Pretty much everyone raided. But the Vikings were just the most successful of the bunch and hence historically significant enough to remember.
How do we know this was traded? It could easily be bounty captured by the Varangian Guard in wars against Muslim powers.
Silver coins from the Islamic world were not exactly rare in Scandinavia (e.g. https://www.medievalists.net/2023/11/nearly-500000-dirhams-w...), and trade is a much more likely explanation especially over such large distances. AFAIK trading vs raiding was often just a question of opportunity and might have been done by the same viking/trader group depending on what was more 'convenient' (or: first raid and then setup an adhoc trading point just around the corner to exchange the loot against silver coins because those are easier to carry home - or the classic: do slave raids on the way from Scandinavia to the Black Sea, and trade the captured slaves with the Greeks-slash-East-Romans and Muslims against silver).
I find it interesting that the western silver is supposed, according to the article, to have been “obtained through raids or ransom” but the eastern silver is supposed to demonstrate trade, and that the mixture of the two symbolizes “the fusion of cultures.” The Rus were raiding around the Caspian at the time, including Muslim territory, so it would be interesting to know how the archaeologists ruled out raiding as a source of the eastern silver.
History, like archeology and paleontology, often take a set of facts or evidentiary items and weave a plausible narrative around it. The narrative can be neutral but also can be stereotyped (in archelogy unknowns are assigned religious significance) or they can be influenced by contemporaneous thought --that is, the narrative is allowed to be influenced by the currents of the day. It may take a century or so for those narratives to be dispelled through the passage of time when such influence wanes.
Could it be that if the silver was still in coinage form it demonstrates trade. If the silver was formed into new objects it would imply raided silver. I'm assuming they use isotopes to figure out the origin of the silver.
Yeah it seems a bizarre claim, especially when we have references to Viking raids in Morocco and Seville as well!
Well, that area was 200 years conquered at the time- the usual decay had not set in yet? So my guess is that there where still competent military powers around and working states & organizations. So - better to trade with these then rob a powerful enemy? The vikings where traders/mercenaries when encountering formidable opponents and robbers when they did not..
Yeah but we know they did raid Muslim areas, and furthermore, they often worked with the Byzantines who were often at war with Muslims. It could be just payment for fighting against Muslims from the Byzantines (whether indirect as booty in war or as direct payment from the Byzantines).
This reminds me of a fun multiple choice question from an educational text that I will remember until I die:
How did Mansa Musa contribute to the cultural diffusion of %region%?
Varangians in Yorkshire?
Yorkshire was settled by many Scandinavians at this point, who could have easily served as Varangians before settling in Yorkshire. Harald Hardrada, for example, served many years in the Varagian guard before reclaiming the throne of Norway and then invading England (he was of course, defeated at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire).
Many Anglo-Saxons also served as Varangians as well! Particularly after the Norman conquest however.
I’ll bite. Most of the Vikings that settled England came from Denmark and Norway. Harald was usually well-travelled even for a Viking, having being exiled to Rus, and then later returning. The number of Vikings from Scandinavia who went to Rus, served in the near east, then returned to Scandinavia then invaded England (carrying their loot with them all the way) can’t have been many.
My money, excuse the pun, is on trade. It’s not uncommon for coins from far flung realms to end up in coin hordes. For example Roman coins have been found in Celtic hordes than predate the Roman invasion of Britain by decades.
> The number of Vikings from Scandinavia who went to Rus, served in the near east, then returned to Scandinavia then invaded England (carrying their loot with them all the way) can’t have been many.
I really don't find this that unbelievable, especially when you consider that booty brought back from the Near East could be traded locally by Scandinavians. So it just takes one guy looting the Muslim world for the silver to make it to Scandinavia and then England.
Can't stand websites that don't let you right-click on other links on their pages. Who the bloody hell are you to control my reading, clicking and ADHD habits for me, especially over some nonsensical concern about me copying your mostly mediocre content?
Web developers that fuck with the browser's functionality deserve to spend eternity stepping on rusty legos while barefoot with James Blunt blaring in the background.
When I look at disciplines other than my own, I can recognize the skill and elegance that goes into it, even though I don't have those skills myself.
But when I look at the output of web development, and I see smooth scrolling, scrolljacking, excessive whitespace, artificial latency before UI popups ... I just don't get it. How can an entire field, as a default practice, intentionally make things bad?
Web development merged with the advertising industry right after tripod starting showing ads.
There has to be more to it. Even services I pay for (the rare ones that don’t also spam my experience with ads) pull from a grab bag of bizarre user hostile quirks.
I think it's that the mentality has invaded the medium of the web. Capturing users/audience is a way to demonstrate "value". Services we pay for want to show wall street how loyal their customer are.
Each auto company want's to have an app store rather than having users just directly connecting and using their phones as the car's infotainment system.
It's all misguided.
AFAIK clicking the wheel (which used to be middle click) opens the link in a new tab on most systems and browsers, if that's your aim.
I feel stupid now, because I never even thought of that, but yes, you're right.
Wow, it even blocks text selection.
I have a browser extension called "Enable Right Click" installed, and that fixed the right-click issue, but not the text selection issue. I'll have to start looking. Of course the real fix is to send the one(s) responsible for web page to the deepest pits of everyone's favourite hot place.
Turn of JS. The you can right click. A lot of paywalls do not work without JS either.
Better link might be: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-08-11-viking-silver-hoard-rev...
The term Viking describes a profession (pirating/raiding) than an ethnicity.
Now every robber (pirate) needs a fence, and going to the people that were pillaged is obviously suboptimal. Much better to go to others who are not well-disposed to the victims.
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> Modern "britain" was colonized and natives were almost wiped out!
Yeah, but not by Vikings. Saxons, and before them Celts did a lot of ethnic cleansing. By contrast the people who we think of as conquerors (Romans, Vikings, Normans) subjugated, rather than replaced the native population.
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More ! should get your point across.
It takes some pretty impressive mental gymastics to rationalize holding people today accountable for something that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago, as though the people today were somehow responsible. Wouldn't working together to share the space be a much more reasonable and sustainable solution?
But no, let's tell people who had nothing to do with historical events to get out and create more conflict. Sure.
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Somewhere, underneath this, you have the beginnings of a valid point. I suggest some time to reflect, get your thoughts in order, and think about the analogy you're drawing, and the extent to which it's valid. Reactionary flaming helps nobody. "Do bad things to bad people! The label of 'bad people' is inconsistently-applied and hard to justify! Do bad things to them anyway!!!!!" is not insightful, and it's not satire. It is, however, wildly off-topic for this thread.
What do you want to accomplish? If it's "draw attention to injustice": the comments you're making are so unspecific that they're only intelligible to people who already know about the problem. If it's "motivate people to act": being irritating isn't effective at that. If it's "change people's minds"… well, I'll quote Friedrich Nietzsche:
> The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.
If you care about the plight of Palestinians, work a summer job for an hour and send the money to Spark Space (https://chuffed.org/project/spark-space-gaza), or something.
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Neanderthals were native to Europe. Get back to Africa, you pesky Cro-Magnons.
