Ring brings ancient Viking, Islamic civilizations closer together

[Dubious]

Inscription, style and lack of wear point to rare archaeological evidence of contact
BY
BRUCE BOWER
1:00PM, MARCH 13, 2015

DISTANT BLING A new study suggests that a ninth century ring from a Viking site in Sweden came directly from the Islamic civilization. The ring includes an inset of colored glass engraved with ancient Arabic script.


More than a century after its discovery in a ninth century woman’s grave, an engraved ring has revealed evidence of close contacts between Viking Age Scandinavians and the Islamic world.

Excavators of a Viking trading center in Sweden called Birka recovered the silver ring in the late 1800s. Until now, it was thought that it featured a violet amethyst engraved with Arabic-looking characters. But closer inspection with a scanning electron microscope revealed that the presumed amethyst is colored glass (an exotic material at the time), say biophysicist Sebastian Wärmländer of Stockholm University and his colleagues.

An inscription on the glass inset reads either “for Allah” or “to Allah” in an ancient Arabic script, the researchers report February 23 in Scanning.

Scandinavians traded for fancy glass objects from Egypt and Mesopotamia as early as 3,400 years ago (SN: 1/24/15, p. 8). Thus, seagoing Scandinavians could have acquired glass items from Islamic traders in the same part of the world more than 2,000 years later rather than waiting for such desirable pieces to move north through trade networks.

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.

The inner surface of the Birka ring’s silver body shows virtually no signs of wear. Filing marks made in the final stage of its production are still visible. That suggests that the ring made by an Arabic silversmith had few or no owners before it reached the Viking woman, the researchers say.

Ring brings ancient Viking, Islamic civilizations closer together | Science News

@Gufi @SvenSvensonov @Slav Defence @Secur @syedali73 @Armstrong

Interesting read

 

[SvenSvensonov]

Inscription, style and lack of wear point to rare archaeological evidence of contact
BY
BRUCE BOWER
1:00PM, MARCH 13, 2015

DISTANT BLING A new study suggests that a ninth century ring from a Viking site in Sweden came directly from the Islamic civilization. The ring includes an inset of colored glass engraved with ancient Arabic script.


More than a century after its discovery in a ninth century woman’s grave, an engraved ring has revealed evidence of close contacts between Viking Age Scandinavians and the Islamic world.

Excavators of a Viking trading center in Sweden called Birka recovered the silver ring in the late 1800s. Until now, it was thought that it featured a violet amethyst engraved with Arabic-looking characters. But closer inspection with a scanning electron microscope revealed that the presumed amethyst is colored glass (an exotic material at the time), say biophysicist Sebastian Wärmländer of Stockholm University and his colleagues.

An inscription on the glass inset reads either “for Allah” or “to Allah” in an ancient Arabic script, the researchers report February 23 in Scanning.

Scandinavians traded for fancy glass objects from Egypt and Mesopotamia as early as 3,400 years ago (SN: 1/24/15, p. 8). Thus, seagoing Scandinavians could have acquired glass items from Islamic traders in the same part of the world more than 2,000 years later rather than waiting for such desirable pieces to move north through trade networks.

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.

The inner surface of the Birka ring’s silver body shows virtually no signs of wear. Filing marks made in the final stage of its production are still visible. That suggests that the ring made by an Arabic silversmith had few or no owners before it reached the Viking woman, the researchers say.

Ring brings ancient Viking, Islamic civilizations closer together | Science News

@Gufi @SvenSvensonov @Slav Defence @Secur @syedali73 @Armstrong

Interesting read

Viking raids and explorations did extend into the Middle East and North Africa, though that is often lost or unknown to most. We think of Vikings as sticking to Canada or the British Isles, but their raids had a long reach:

The real Vikings: history, archaeology, and mythology in Vikings Forum

Fraxinetum: An Islamic Frontier State in 10th-Century Provence | Ballandalus

It's possible they could have retrieved the rings while on a raid or exploration and brought them back to the Norse-lands. Viking parties made it as far as Constantinople!

Of course, Arab traders made it North too, perhaps a trade was done rather than a raid. Who can say right now?

@Nihonjin1051 @Gufi @Armstrong

 

[ArsalanKhan21]

Ahmad ibn Fadlān ibn al-Abbās ibn Rāšid ibn Hammād (Arabic: أحمد بن فضلان بن العباس بن راشد بن حماد‎) was a 10th-century Arab traveler, famous for his account of his travels as a member of an embassy of the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad to the king of the Volga Bulgars. His account is most known for providing a description of the Volga Vikings, including an eyewitness account of a ship burial. He provided descriptions for various other peoples, most notably Turkic peoples such as the Oghuzes, Pechenegs, Bashkirs, and Khazars.

Ahmad ibn Fadlan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[denel]

There was a very good documentary by WGBH series Nova. Vikings were using damascus steel which only came from Iran. Vikings were travel down the volga and connecting up to the black sea. There are lots of gold coins with islamic stamps from the Viking period in various swedish museams. In Hagia Sophia, there are some inscriptions in viking script where some of the vikings took up positions for a few years.

NOVA | Secrets of the Viking Sword

 

[denel]

The volga trade route.

NOVA | The Volga Trade Route

Similarly Zheng He the chinese muslim admiral who made sea journeys with the imperial fleet and also to east Africa.
NOVA | Ancient Chinese Explorers

I visited the museam in Dar-es-salaam and they have relics from the voyage. There was a documentary by National Geographic on Admiral Zheng with a possibility of his journey to the americas.

His family descendants are still alive. The documentary shows the grave of the admiral and it is inscripted in arabic.

 

[Devil Soul]

9th century Viking woman discovered with ring that says 'for Allah'
By Web Desk
Published: March 19, 2015

The ring made over 1,000 years ago has confirmed contact between the Vikings and the Islamic world because it was unearthed in Sweden but bears an ancient Arabic inscription that asys 'for Allah' or 'to Allah'. PHOTO COURTESY: THE SWEDISH HISTORY MUSEUM

Sweden’s has had a strained relationship with the Arab world over the past few weeks, after the Scandinavian country came under a war of words with Saudi Arabia over human rights.

But an engraved ring excavated from a ninth-century grave in the Viking trading centre of Birka, Sweden, suggests that friendlier ties existed between modern Sweden’s forefathers and the Islamic civilisations.

The woman in the grave died in 9th century and was discovered around a thousand years later by the famous Swedish archaeologist Hjalmar Stolpe, who spent years excavating the grave sites around Birka.

Made of silver alloy, the ring contained a stone with an inscription written in the Kufic Arabic script widely used between the 8th and 10th centuries. “For/to Allah,” the inscription read. It was the only known Viking Age ring with an Arabic inscription to be found in the entire of Scandinavia. Exactly how the woman got the ring wasn’t clear – she was found wearing typical Scandinavian dress, so presumably the ring arrived through trade.

Now, new research from biophysicist Sebastian Wärmländer of Stockholm University and his colleagues has confirmed exactly how unique the ring was. In the journal Scanning, the researchers recount how they used a scanning electron microscope to investigate the origins of the ring. Notably, they discovered that the stone in the ring is actually coloured glass – at the time an exotic material for the Vikings, though it had been made for thousands of years in the Middle East and North Africa.

National Geographic Creative

Even more notably, the ring displayed a remarkable lack of wear, leading the authors to speculate that it had few – if any – owners in-between its creator and its Viking owner. Instead, Wärmländer and his colleagues suggest, it appears to show direct contact between Viking society and the Abbasid Caliphate that dominated much of the Middle East and North Africa.

The authors write, “it is not impossible that the woman herself, or someone close to her, might have visited — or even originate from — the Caliphate or its surrounding regions.”

While physical evidence of it is unusual, there have been plenty of accounts of Scandinavians from this period crossing paths with the early Muslim world. By the 11th century Vikings had become known for their lengthy sea voyages, journeying as far west as the Americas and likely reaching Constantinople and even Baghdad when they travelled the other way. And while contemporary accounts of Vikings from Western Europe suggests terrifying invaders, most accounts suggest the Vikings, likely fearful of the more sophisticated warriors in the region, instead looked for trade when they went east.

“The Vikings were very interested in silver, not so much in gold,” Farhat Hussain, a historian, told the National newspaper of Abu Dhabi in 2008.

“It was a status symbol for Viking men and women; they even wanted to be buried with silver.”

The boss from the Viking shield was recently found to contain Islamic coins in a leather purse. PHOTO COURTESY: DAILY MAIL

Still, the Scandinavians did raise doubts over their journeys. In an otherwise complimentary description of people now believed to be Vikings, Ahmad ibn Fadlan, an emissary of the Abbasid Caliph, wasn’t so sure about their hygiene.

“They are the filthiest of all Allah’s creatures,” the Arab writer wrote in the 10th century. “They do not purify themselves after excreting or urinating or wash themselves when in a state of ritual impurity after coitus and do not even wash their hands after food.”

Exactly how the woman in Birka and the ring fit into this relationship isn’t known. It may never be known.

“I don’t know if it was bought or looted and of course I wish I could know how it all came about that this woman got it – friendly or otherwise. If she went far from home or if someone brought it back for her?” Linda Wåhlander, a teacher at the Statens historiska museum who worked on the project, explained in an e-mail. “I am an archaeologist but I sometimes wish I was a timetraveller.”

The article originally appeared in The Washington Post

 

[Gazi]

Is that something to do with Muslims Settlement called Volga Bulgar?

 

[Pakistani E]

Is that something to do with Muslims Settlement called Volga Bulgar?

I dont know about that but the "vikings" had extensive trade links with the Muslim world. This ring could have been a gift, among other things.

 

[Gazi]

I dont know about that but the "vikings" had extensive trade links with the Muslim world. This ring could have been a gift, among other things.

There was an Arab who went there his name was Ahmad Ibn Fadlan during Caliphate in Baghdad. He was considered as First person who Contact Al Majus(Viking in Arabic) from the Muslim World. Western Media have even Made a Movie about his Journey to Viking Lands by the Name of 13th Worrier starring Antonio Bendaras. It is a fiction of course but good Movie.

 

[jamahir]

In an otherwise complimentary description of people now believed to be Vikings, Ahmad ibn Fadlan, an emissary of the Abbasid Caliph, wasn’t so sure about their hygiene.

i was indeed thinking of the antonio banderas flim, "the 13th warrior".

Published: March 19, 2015

The ring made over 1,000 years ago has confirmed contact between the Vikings and the Islamic world because it was unearthed in Sweden but bears an ancient Arabic inscription that asys 'for Allah' or 'to Allah'. PHOTO COURTESY: THE SWEDISH HISTORY MUSEUM

that's a beautiful ring... with that stone, i would want a cuff-link pair.

 

[ExtraOdinary]

Reminds me of that antonio banderas/omar sharif movie

 

[Gazi]

Reminds me of that antonio banderas/omar sharif movie

It was based on Ahmad Ibn Fadlan Journey to Al Majus(Viking in Arabic) lands although extensively Commercialized by introducing Eaters of Death like in Beuwolf story but good Movie.

 

[flamer84]

Most probably seized from a dead men's/woman finger after the vikings laid waste to their settlement.

 

[Jaanbaz]

Reminds me of that antonio banderas/omar sharif movie

Yeah. That movie was awesome.

 

[Gazi]

Most probaly seized from a dead men's/woman finger after the vikings laid waste to their settlement.

Dates are quite similar to Ahmad Ibn Fadlan Journey to North in Viking Lands i.e 9th Century. Maybe during Volga Bulgar's period there.