Ring brings Viking, Islamic civilizations closer together | Hacker News Reader

Ring brings Viking, Islamic civilizations closer together

sciencenews.org

78 pointsVigier59 comments

I'm surprised though that the ring is such a big sensation. Normans (direct descendants of the Vikings) conquered Sicily from the Muslims back in the 11th century. Previous to that Vikings were hired as mercenaries around the whole Mediterranean basin and even served as an elite unit in Byzantine emperor's employ (Varangian guard) at the time of continuous clashes between the crumbling empire and Arabic and then various Turkish invaders.

"Varangian guard"

Are impressive, a local re-enactment. Close order combat with sword and shield ~ https://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/7215762766820695... and chain ~ https://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/6146924256/in/set-721... will withstand all blows except stiletto attack.

I was more interested in the religious implications of the ring, wondering how much Islam had penetrated Slavic/Scandinavian cultures, and if individuals incorporated the Islamic God into their (personal) pantheons.

Would make for some interesting historical fiction, but this find is at most a footnote in history.

You might be interested in reading the travel accounts of Ahmad Ibn Fadlan (full name Ahmad ibn Fadlān ibn al-Abbās ibn Rāšid ibn Hammād), an Abassid envoy who travelled all the way up to Russia in the early 10th century and apparently witnessed a Viking funeral:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan

His account is collected with a few other Arab travelogues in the North in "Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North"

Someone created a reconstructed map of the possible route: http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=e83699d...

There's a (fictional) film version of this that combines his story with the Beowulf saga[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_13th_Warrior

Well strictly speaking the ring appears to say some form of "god" (to god, for god, god willing) in a Kufic script of Arabic.

>"The significance of this ring has never been based on its purported material composition, but on its connection to the Islamic world. This connection is now not only confirmed, but actually strengthened due to the mint condition of the ring's metal body, as will be discussed below." // (from the full source of the OP, "Analysis and interpretation of a unique Arabic finger ring from the Viking Age town of Birka, Sweden" http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sca.21189/full)

What I don't really see about this is the claim to the 'closeness' of the woman buried and the area where the glass bead was produced. They say themselves that rings were made locally from silver coins from Afghanistan and it's said that the glass bead showed additional signs of wear that the ring didn't have. Based on that it seems their conclusion should be the ring was made locally from "Caliphate" silver, eg coin, and the glass was acquired separately? That conclusion is far less ground-breaking of course.

This:

>"That said, the elongated middle section and the extra stroke representing a third “L” are problematic. Presently, we interpret the inscription as ILLLH, to be read il-la-lah, i.e. “For/to (the approval) of the God”. Several regional variations of Arabic spelling and writing are however known to exist, and it is furthermore possible that the inscription was written – or copied – by someone with an incomplete understanding of Arabic writing." //

I wondered if they'd followed up on the idea that it was a signet ring and considered the mirrored version and attempted a translation based on that? It seems very strange that a high value item spelling the most recognisable Arabic word (Allah) would possibly have a spelling mistake. Perhaps it was inscribed locally as a copy; maybe false provenance by a resourceful North European who could sell exotic Arabic pieces for a higher price?

Not being even a modern Arabic reader I can't challenge this but normally there's a loop at the end of "allah" which is part of the letter h and makes reading the arabic left-to-right appear not dissimilar to the latin word rendering of the same word "all_h" (see for example p.15, fig.20b at https://www.academia.edu/7852040/Chapter_One_What_is_SK_Figu...). Could it not just be a name that bears close resemblance to Allah; "Allll" it looks like to me [a complete novice at reading any form of Arabic nevermind kufic scripts!].

If anyone's interested I found this similar "lapidary kufic" inscription on a bronze coin online, http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php?topic=13497.0 - I was following an idea that the inscription might have been copied from a coin. Also this, http://www.sakkal.com/instrctn/sq_kufi_alphabet.html, reference for closely related "square [lapidary/monumental] kufic" goes to show how difficult to read it is!

Aside, the image of the ring shows an inscription on the back but it doesn't appear to be mentioned or clearly shown in the images. Isn't that a bit strange.

I wouldn't call it a sensation since it doesn't rewrite history, but the article does not call it that either. It is just an unique archaeological find, which is also something.

More amazing to me is the 6th century bronze Buddha statue found in a pre-Viking era trading centre in Helgö, Sweden:

http://irisharchaeology.ie/2013/12/the-helgo-treasure-a-viki...

Wow, that is amazing. There is also the very old saint's life Barlaam and Josaphat that is basically a Christianized Buddha story. I think we underestimate how much contact there was between East and West long ago. I recall hearing about communities found in Afghanistan still speaking Greek, probably from Alexander the Great. And before that, Herodotus has many stories of intercourse between Greeks and Persians.

Yeah, I was blown away by Barlaam and Josaphat.

If you're interested in the intersections between Greece and Asia, you should find these articles pretty amazing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Bactrian_Kingdom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhist_art

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~bhhankes/bamiyanhistory.html

I think we underestimate how much contact there was between East and West long ago.

One contributing factor to this was that the Ottomans closed the silk road to Europeans.

"Contact" between Europe and Asia was already a fairly tenuous link, where very few people actually made the journey or even talked to people who had (ignoring for the moment wars).

The closing of the silk road made it seem even more remote.

This led to European nations seeking sea-routes to Asia, which ironically led to greater knowledge of the East (as people in Western Europe started hearing stories first hand, instead of third hand via traders who traded with caravan traders).

Yeah, I was going to point that out too. Here's more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_conquest_of_southern_Ita...

At one point in my life here in Italy, I had a blonde housemate from Sicily.

Something strange I find is researchers finding it as new evidence in a new encounter.

In Islamic history this is a well known[1] connection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan

This ring is an amazing discovery, but you're right that contact between the Viking and Islamic cultures was already well known. The Icelandic sagas, for example, document the prestige won by Norse warriors who traveled to Constantinople and served in the Varangian Guard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangian_Guard In fact, if you travel to Istanbul today, you can see Norse runes carved into the stones of the Hagia Sophia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_inscriptions_in_Hagia_Sop...

Constantinople was Christian at the time though. It was the capital of the roman empire, and remained Christian until til fifteenth century. But they did fight Arabs, so there was contact that way.

Damn, just as I was writing my comment. Clearly, this is the guy Crichton based http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eaters_of_the_Dead on.

To be fair, the article does mention textual evidence of contact. It just say the ring is a rare archaeological evidence, which is correct.

Hardly, there is considerable evidence.

From "Silver Economy In The Viking Age" edited by James Graham-Campbell, Gareth Williams:

"It is also relevant to note that, both in Denmark itself, and more widely in Scandinavia, coin finds from the ninth and tenth centuries are dominated by Islamic dirhams and their Khazar, Bulghar and possibly Russian imitations, rather than by native Danish coins or their Frankish models (Hovén 1981; Kromann 1990; Jensen and Kromann 1998; Talvio 1998)."

Yeah, but the article points out what is unique about the ring: The lack of wear indicates that it had few or no intermediate owners. This indicates direct contact. The Islamic coins on the other hand, most likely went through multiple owners along the way, which is typically how artifacts travel.

They don't think it's a new encounter. FTFA: "Ancient texts mention encounters around 1,000 years ago between Scandinavians and members of the Islamic civilization, which stretched from West Asia to Mediterranean lands. Archaeological evidence supporting those accounts, though, is rare. "

What an interesting wikipedia article. The scholars of the Islamic period are so under appreciated.

Beside Vikings traveling down Atlantic Ocean into Mediterranean, there were another active, eastern, routes. Even Greek and Romans had amber which was coming from the south of Baltic Sea. Several centuries later Vikings actively traveled down the rivers through territories of modern Poland, Moldova, Ukraine and Russia (where Vikings founded the Kievana Rus - the Russia 1.0 - state as a result (with Russian tzars and nobles proudly tracing their genealogy back to those Vikings - tzars until 16th century and the nobles until they were basically exterminated about 100 years ago as result of Revolution)). From Kievana Rus Vikings also raided South of Caspian Sea (Iran) through Volga river.

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>viking origin of Kievan Rus is disputed

there are some theories that there was some state there before Kievan Rus state founded by Vikings. That pre-Viking state(s) has pretty much no meaningful traces, it was more like glorified village-level tribes of Slavs running in the forest. Only with Vikings there appeared the state which pushed (and finally destroyed) Khazar khaganate (a huge empire in itself) and performed aggressive southward raids, like those on Constantinopole and Iran.

>not all the aristocracy (kulaks)

kulaks, as were already said by the other commenter, have absolutely nothing to do with aristocracy, not even in the same hemisphere. I can only wonder how much do you know about Russian history ...

kulaks were not aristocracy, but rich peasants. It's funny you speak with such authority, while yourself committing simple errors.

I recall reading about some Buddhist artefacts found at Viking sites. That could put their travels much older than whats mentioned here.

http://irisharchaeology.ie/2013/12/the-helgo-treasure-a-viki...

The Vikings sure travelled far and wide.

They travelled far and wide indeed but it is also quite possible that Buddhist artifacts got in their possession via much earlier Sino-Roman trade exchange and then just happened to be in one of the cloisters which Vikings so loved to plunder.

Not necessarily, artifacts could have traveled through multiple transactions along a trade route without any single person traveling all the way. So the Buddha does not necessarily mean that a viking traveled to Asia or vice versa. Although it does show that continuous interactions happened all the way, which is itself fascinating.

That's the most probable explanation. The ancient trade routes were more A to B to C and not A going to C type affairs. The Americans has seen artifacts from the Arctic make it down to Central America, never mind the Pacific islanders.

"Scandinavians traded for fancy glass objects from Egypt and Mesopotamia as early as 3,400 years ago "

And believe it or not they were doing the same thing 1100 years ago as well.

There are certain stories that remain perennially "surprising" no matter how often they are reported on. For example, "Engineers use nature as a source of inspiration" is still reported with breathless amazement despite every engineer for the past century (at least) being taught to look to nature for inspiration.

Likewise, "Companies go green to save money" apparently astonishes people, decades after Interface became famous for doing precisely that.

And "Old people had sex and porn" will never get old, any more than "Ancient peoples traded over the whole world".

I'm not sure why these stories get the "that's surprising" reaction they do. Simple ignorance won't cut it, because they all get reported on so many times that eventually ignorance would decline, but it never does. It may have something to do with people's stereotypes overwhelming their knowledge, so even though they know engineers are sensitive and thoughtful people or that ancient peoples traded widely, that knowledge never "sticks" to the stereotype of engineers as uncultured and insensitive or ancient peoples as immobile and sedentary.

> Simple ignorance won't cut it, because they all get reported on so many times that eventually ignorance would decline, but it never does.

Well, new people get born all the time. And they are totally ignorant until they learn things.

Not a big Crichton fan (most of his books spend the first half explaining how smart everyone is, and the second half is always those smart people making terribly stupid decisions) BUT, Crichton did write Eaters of the Dead, a book that is about exactly what this article talks about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eaters_of_the_Dead

The story follows a Muslim who is sent as an emissary to the Vikings, and all the craziness that follows. It was also a movie: the 13th Warrior. It's a great story, not terribly well executed. The culture clash is the most interesting part, particularly when the Muslim lead is asked to "draw words," because his people have a system of writing, and the Vikings don't.

I read somewhere the Crichton was basing this on some 10th century writings from some fellow who actually made this journey, but I can find no more references to it online....

It's based on the writings of Ibn Fahad, also posted by someone else below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan

And I love the Eaters of the Dead. It's not high art, but I found it an enjoyable read (once you realise that most of the footnotes are fake).

Yeah, Crichton can be fun as long as you take him as pulp, not as some genius expert on the topics he writes about.

I think a lot of his books consist of finding something people are anxious about (Japanese Takeover of America - Rising Sun; Sexual Harassment of Men - Disclosure; Prey - Nanotechnology; Westworld - Robots) and then write a book about it.

Plus, he also did ER as well which was pretty entertaining.

I recently re-read Jurassic Park, and he showed a lot of knowledge about complex systems. He details the events leading up to the collapse of the park's control systems, and the local rationality of actions characters take make perfect sense. The chapters were structured to either end on a cliffhanger, or stop right before some kind of action was bout to be taken, so it has a pulp feel to it. But the underlying themes and attention to detail made me think he's quite intelligent and insightful, and capable of writing in a way that people want to read.

And don't forget The Long Ships [1] which is another book about this period.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Ships

I was about 14 when I read it, I was so mad when I read the afterword, particularly:

Under the circumstances, I should perhaps say explicitly that the references in this afterword are genuine. The rest of the novel, including its introduction, text, footnotes, and bibliography, should properly be viewed as fiction.

It didn't lead me to invest any wasted effort or anything, but I had bought into the footnotes being truthful.

There are lots of Islamic gold & silver coins found in Viking hoards: http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/b-focus-b-v...

Perhaps even more amazing is the small Buddha statue found in a grave in Sweden from the 8th century.

Yeah, basically eurasian continent has been crisscrossed with traderoutes for thousands of years. From Scandinavia to Mediterranean, from China to Italy (romans were fond of chinese silk). I suppose the stereotype of the sedentary medieval peasant is so strong that notions of traderoutes spanning thousands of kilometers being ordinary is hard to grasp.

If you ever read the Prose Edda (the Atlakvida or Lay of Atli) or Nibelungenlied (Song of the Nibelungs) and find a mention of Atli or Etzel, that's actually (spoiler) Attila the Hun.

Life imitates art.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120657/

Actually it is the other way around in this case.

The sample size in underwhelming. One single ring can have travelled that distance in any number of ways.

Here is something to increase your sample size: https://www.academia.edu/1722281/Islamic_Coin_Hoards_and_the...

But that doesn't - the authors in the paper are explicitly claiming that this ring shows direct communication between the Caliphate and Swedish vikings, that the woman recently acquired the ring directly based on the wear of the ring and it's form. The GP is right to question the sample size IMO.

Your citation moves the opposite direction and reinforces the GP's statement that the items can travel far in myriad ways.

Not at all, the parent and the article claim it was a unique item, it isn't.

There was a predominance of silver Islamic dirham over any other currency including local varieties, this is strong evidence of direct trade with Islamic countries (as cited in another of my comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9214849 )

I think we're at cross-purposes to some extent. The paper isn't claiming the article is unique [in being Afghan silver jewellery in Sweden] as it clearly mentions not only other silver coins but other rings (IIRC) having come to Sweden from "the Caliphate". The specific details of the physical appearance of the ring they are claiming indicate that this item has a unique story; I challenge that claim being entirely supported by the evidence they presented (see my other comments).

People traded in the Middle Ages? Not the biggest surprise. And ugh, its medieval, not ancient.

In Scandinavian historiographic tradition the Middle Ages is counted from the arrival of Christianity. Being the the 8th century, the find is from the Viking Age which is earlier.

From the abstract of the paper itself:

>"an Arabic finger ring, which was found in a 9th c. woman's grave" //

Which by your definition makes this mediaeval, as the GP states.

No, according to my definition 9th century is Viking Age. Scandinavian medieval period starts around year 1000 with christianization. Of course these labels are more or less arbitrary. In western Europe, the medieval times are sometimes counted from the fall of the western roman empire, and in that case 9th century is clearly medieval. I believe this is the tradition in England.

Ah, OK, I stand corrected. Your error in saying '8th Century' confused suggested you were saying 'as it's 8th and not 9th century.

In Scandinavia is it considered that the Viking age and mediaeval period don't overlap at all? Is there a specific event that marks the start of the mediaeval period - you mentioned Christianisation, perhaps the arrival of an evangelist (aka saint)?

Of course the ring could be C8 - I wonder if they can date it with reference to the comparison of the composition with coins with a known date [though I guess that only gives an upper bound as the silver used in the coins could have been mined much earlier].

I'm glad you're not dissing the Middle Ages, but the Ancients had some amazing trading networks too.

The Britons in Cornwall, Devon and Brittany traded tin with the rest of Europe as far back as 2150BC. Pytheas of Massalia travelled all the way Britain about 325 BC and wrote about the thriving trade.

Update: also Bronze Age trading between the Scandinavians and Egyptians: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-egyptian-blue-gl...

Hmm, a ring binding two cultures together. Do words appear on it when placed in fire?

Yep just like JK Rowling said in Game of Thrones, one ring to rule them all and in the darkness blind them.

The language it's written in is Assail, too.

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