Posted on 04/04/2008 7:50:12 AM PDT by blam
Swedes find Viking-era Arab coins
The Arab coins reveal where they were minted and the date
Swedish archaeologists have discovered a rare hoard of Viking-age silver Arab coins near Stockholm's Arlanda airport.
About 470 coins were found on 1 April at an early Iron Age burial site. They date from the 7th to 9th Century, when Viking traders travelled widely.
There has been no similar find in that part of Sweden since the 1880s.
Most of the coins were minted in Baghdad and Damascus, but some came from Persia and North Africa, said archaeologist Karin Beckman-Thoor.
The team from the Swedish National Heritage Board had just started removing a stone cairn at the site "when we suddenly found one coin and couldn't understand why it was there", she told the BBC News website.
"We continued digging and found more coins and realised it was a Viking-age hoard." The coins were left there in about AD850, she said.
Such Viking hoards usually come from Gotland - a large Swedish island in the Baltic Sea, she explained.
"No Viking was buried at this site - the grave is older. Maybe the Vikings thought the hoard would be protected by ancestors," Ms Beckman-Thoor added. Vikings had settled in a village nearby.
The Vikings travelled widely in their longships in the Baltic region and Russia from the late 8th to the 11th Century. They are known to have travelled as far as North Africa and Constantinople (now Istanbul).
In the tenth century a group of them were actually incorporated into a royal guard by the emperor Basil II, as he (probably wisely) didn't trust the native military, and the Byzantines respected the Scandinavians' martial skills. They were called the Varanngian Guard. I want to say that "Varanngian" loosely meant "The sworn ones"... but I think its also the term the Byzantines used for the Norse in general.
Thanx
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Thanks Blam. |
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Buddha statue from 6th c found in Viking hoard in Helgo, Sweden
Biblical Archaeology Review | March/April 2005 | “Worldwide” editor
Posted on 04/26/2005 11:26:07 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1391864/posts
Crystal Amulet Poses Question On Early Christianity (Denmark - 100AD)
Denmark DK | 3-9-2007
Posted on 03/09/2007 11:37:30 AM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1798187/posts
Chrichton's bibliography was, initially, quite disturbing, but was clearly meant as an inside joke.
Extra points to Ruddles, for catching it.
Sauron
Thanks, that’s interesting.
Ah! Thanks. I was hoping you’d also post the one about the Viking (queen?/royalty?) with Egyptian or Middle Eastern DNA.
The Michael Crighton book, “Eaters of the Dead” (movie 13th Warrior) is loosely based on 7 translation of the Arab Ibn Fadan who came from what is now Baghdad.
The book is semi-fiction but based on the translations of an ancient diary of Ibn Fadn.
Theory goes that that the enemies that were harassing the Vikings were actually the last remnants of Neanderthals.
Love that lost Neanderthal lore. You know, Friedrich von Junzt, who wrote the Unaussprechlichen Kulten, claimed Neanderthals lived on, at least through the 16th century in a vast cave system under the Spanish Pyrenees, and were worshipped by various proto-Dionysian mystery cults, as well as later pagan state religions throughout Europe. Some even whisper today of Vatican couriers disappearing for months at a time into the Basque backcountry. At risk of being accused of cheezy viral publicity mongering, I will say that a friend in the movie business told me M. Knight Shamilan is working on something along these lines and is planning to play Pope of the Neanderthals himself.
Oooh, not sure I remember that one.
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