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Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves

bbc.com

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Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves

#11

Post by saimiam »

hprotagonist wrote: post #6
senatorobama wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii_Lakshmi

another good one: the Hallstatt salt mines in what is now Austria have been around since the late Iron Age. I recall but cannot currently find studies that have found bags of the mined salt in graves and digs all along the silk road over a time period of millennia. "The Dark Ages" is a horrible name. It was coined to denote "a period that we, historians, don't know much about because we don't have nearly as many anal…

Dark ages => ages we are in the dark about (Tongue well in cheek).

Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves

#13

Post by earksiinni »

Sceptical that this means that there were Muslim Vikings. Arabic script was commonly used throughout medieval Iberia as decoration, often without any meaningful words, just Arabic letters strung together for aesthetic effect. Wouldn’t surprise me if something similar was going on here, where Iranian weavers were simply mass producing cloth for export with Ali and Allah embroidered as decoration. Keep in mind that Viking runes can be found inscribed in the walls of the Hagia Sophia. That doesn’t mean that the Vikings were Christian (or Muslim); it means that our stereotypes about the Middle Ages are totally invented by nineteenth century historians with their own nationalist agendas that didn’t allow for a cosmopolitan, globalized medieval Europe.

Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves

#14

Post by rflrob »

earksiinni wrote: post #13

Sceptical that this means that there were Muslim Vikings. Arabic script was commonly used throughout medieval Iberia as decoration, often without any meaningful words, just Arabic letters strung together for aesthetic effect. Wouldn’t surprise me if something similar was going on here, where Iranian weavers were simply mass producing cloth for export with Ali and Allah embroidered as decoration. Keep in mind that Vik…

Not just lacking meaningful words—sometimes including designs clearly meant to look like Arabic, but not even real letterforms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Kufic

Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves

#16

Post by peteretep »

earksiinni wrote: post #13

Sceptical that this means that there were Muslim Vikings. Arabic script was commonly used throughout medieval Iberia as decoration, often without any meaningful words, just Arabic letters strung together for aesthetic effect. Wouldn’t surprise me if something similar was going on here, where Iranian weavers were simply mass producing cloth for export with Ali and Allah embroidered as decoration. Keep in mind that Vik…

    > "We know from other Viking tomb
    > excavations that DNA analysis has
    > shown some of the people buried in
    > them originated from places like
    > Persia, where Islam was very dominant
Which is also not proof-positive that there were Muslim Vikings, but as we know there were Persian Vikings, and as the name Allah appears as decoration, it does start to see pretty likely, no?

Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves

#17

Post by craftyguy »

hprotagonist wrote: post #2

the "viking buddha" is another fine example of robust trade networks during the migration period. Material goods get around! http://irisharchaeology.ie/2013/12/the-helgo-treasure-a-viki... This goes both ways, of course. A Varangian Guards carved "halfdan was here" on the hagia sophia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_inscriptions_in_Hagia_So...

Robust trade, or spoils of conquest/pillaging. In either case, it's not totally surprising that good from half a world away would end up in some viking longhouse.

Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves

#18

Post by pilsetnieks »

vondur wrote: post #15

I believe that the Vikings also raided cities in Islamic Spain. Could have been something they stole and made clothes of it.

They didn't just rape and pillage, as is popularly assumed; they settled and traded as well. It's not improbable that they'd buy exotic clothing, especially the ornate kind worn for various events or ceremonies.

Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves

#19

Post by leyth »

earksiinni wrote: post #13

Sceptical that this means that there were Muslim Vikings. Arabic script was commonly used throughout medieval Iberia as decoration, often without any meaningful words, just Arabic letters strung together for aesthetic effect. Wouldn’t surprise me if something similar was going on here, where Iranian weavers were simply mass producing cloth for export with Ali and Allah embroidered as decoration. Keep in mind that Vik…

Wow, talk about conjecture! If they found these artifacts in their graves, the closes thing to truth is that they were Muslims, nothing else.

Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves

#20

Post by pilsetnieks »

craftyguy wrote: post #17
hprotagonist wrote: post #2

the "viking buddha" is another fine example of robust trade networks during the migration period. Material goods get around! http://irisharchaeology.ie/2013/12/the-helgo-treasure-a-viki... This goes both ways, of course. A Varangian Guards carved "halfdan was here" on the hagia sophia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_inscriptions_in_Hagia_So...

Robust trade, or spoils of conquest/pillaging. In either case, it's not totally surprising that good from half a world away would end up in some viking longhouse.

It's doubtful they were especially more keen on raiding and pillaging than other cultures of the time. They were some of the last pagans of Europe and they didn't shy away from raiding churches and monasteries. Monks were almost the only people who could write about it, and their bias influences their accounts.

It's not that vikings were especially nice and peaceable people but neither was anyone then.

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