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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

#41

Post by WillPostForFood »

hourislate wrote: post #22
megaman22 wrote: post #5

Norse were trading and raiding all over the rivers of eastern Europe, down into the Black Sea, and likewise along the Atlantic seaboard into the Mediterranean. It would be profoundly weird if some items of Islamic provenance did not make their way into grave goods and hoards in Scandinavia.

Almost every King Kyiv/ Kyiv Rus was a Viking. The last Viking King of Norway was also the last King of Kyiv from what I understand. They fought with the Turks for 100's of years. It wouldn't surprise me if this clothing was not just something they came across on a raid or purchased.

The Varangian Guard (personal bodyguards to the Byzantine Emperor) dates back to the 10th century. They were 'vikings' on loan from Kyiv Rus to the Byzantine Empire. There was much more cultural cross pollination than most people who have anglo centric view of history realize.

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

#42

Post by jlebrech »

1. it's the BBC, they are biased towards that type article

2. it's totally non-obvious and the message is hidden (as per the article)

3. arabs, were obsessed (also experts) by geometric patterns and those pattern were also their early gods. so they would have produced many goods with nice patterns on them.

4. it looks nice, and i'm sure they would have bought or stole those items from arabs.

5. pascal's wager, they could be hedging their bets.

6. they were probably pre Bluetooth, where he unified the viking religion to be Christianity.

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

#43

Post by lokimedes »

The Swedish vikings are known to have travelled, traded and served as guards for the Ottomans. Most people equate Vikings with the Danish/Norwegian raids and voyages in western europe and the atlantic. It’s an interesting discovery, but the article lacks a bit of context. (Source: Historical Atlas of the Vikings by John Haywood, also a history interested dane/norseman).

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

#44

Post by imron »

AmIFirstToThink wrote: post #25

Occam's razor: Viking raided silk traders travelling far, or raided people who had access to those traders, traders who were either wearing or selling the silk cloth with pattern.

Occam's other razor:

You have to look at the garments in the mirror in order to see the word Allah so it could just as well be random patterns, like that piece of toast with Jesus' face on it.

It would not be the first time that the word Allah appeared among otherwise random patterns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptions_of_religious_image...

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

#45

Post by microcolonel »

anovikov wrote: post #26

Well, why don't they think that Vikings simply seen these as a decoration, not understanding what they mean? That happens in much much more recent times. Late Russian ex-foreign minister, and ex-prime minister Primakov, who is Arab states specialist and reads Arabic scripts very well, once saw a garment with 'No god except Allah...' on Patriarch of Russia Alexy II, shocking him because similar ritual garments were us…

There's some suggestion that the Spanish interjection olé is also descended from Allah (or rather some conjugation of it).

More or less, each name for God in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions is related to a similar name in one or both other traditions. "Allah" is a modern standard Arabic transliteration of a word which translates quite simply to God. The only reason to translate it as "Allah" is to signify that the context is Islamic.

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

#46

Post by taneliv »

irrational wrote: post #38
anovikov wrote: post #26

Well, why don't they think that Vikings simply seen these as a decoration, not understanding what they mean? That happens in much much more recent times. Late Russian ex-foreign minister, and ex-prime minister Primakov, who is Arab states specialist and reads Arabic scripts very well, once saw a garment with 'No god except Allah...' on Patriarch of Russia Alexy II, shocking him because similar ritual garments were us…

But Allah is a cognate of El/Elohim. You could translate it as There is no god except El/Elohim. Just because it uses Arabic characters doesn't mean it can't be translated into English (or Russian) as something other than Allah.

But if it was literally that sentence, one has to note that it is the beginning of shahada, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahada , one of the Islamic creeds. From this perspective the surprise element of the story (if true), is both stronger and clearer to explain.

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

#47

Post by rusanu »

Swedish Vikings extended mostly toward what is now Russia and Ukraine, using Volga, Don and Dniepr as major communication/transport channels [0]. This brought them into contact with the Khazar Khanagate at the mouth of Volga [1] and the Volga Bulgars [2] (both muslim at the time). When Vladimir (half viking) had to choose a religion for his Kievan Rus, Islam was one of the choices [3] (rejected because it would forbid the joy of drinking, see link).

So there was ample cultural contact with Islam, a religion actively proselytizing. It lasted about 150-200 years. That some influence made it back to Sweden should not be surprising.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_trade_route [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Bulgaria [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_the_Great

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

#48

Post by qw »

AmIFirstToThink wrote: post #25

Occam's razor: Viking raided silk traders travelling far, or raided people who had access to those traders, traders who were either wearing or selling the silk cloth with pattern.

Why assume raids? Vikings were also traders and travelled far. They might as well have bought the cloth in Byzantium.

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

#49

Post by DavidAdams »

microcolonel wrote: post #45
anovikov wrote: post #26

Well, why don't they think that Vikings simply seen these as a decoration, not understanding what they mean? That happens in much much more recent times. Late Russian ex-foreign minister, and ex-prime minister Primakov, who is Arab states specialist and reads Arabic scripts very well, once saw a garment with 'No god except Allah...' on Patriarch of Russia Alexy II, shocking him because similar ritual garments were us…

There's some suggestion that the Spanish interjection olé is also descended from Allah (or rather some conjugation of it). More or less, each name for God in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions is related to a similar name in one or both other traditions. "Allah" is a modern standard Arabic transliteration of a word which translates quite simply to God. The only reason to translate it as "Allah" is to signi…

Spanish speaking people have an even more obvious loan word from Arabic they use pretty commonly: ojalá. It means, "hopefully," or literally, "God willing."

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

#50

Post by rypskar »

stevenwoo wrote: post #30
wnevets wrote: post #23

This makes me think of the movie the 13th warrior[0] where a warrior from Baghdad fights along side Vikings [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_13th_Warrior

The TV show Vikings shows one Viking family around 1100? traveling to Arab lands and picking up an East Asian female along the way and being the first ones to attack England, heavily fictionalized.

I would think the show is supposed to be set around year 800, since it started with attack on Lindsfarne, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindisfarne, which is the first known Viking raid. Also Ragnar and the Ragnar sons was before the story started in Snorres Heimskringla https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimskringla. Third Harald Hårfagre (850-930), from before he became king, is part of the series. Of course the series is not strict to the history, but in most places it is close enough to recognize the events from history. The Arab land they did go to was Spain, I even think they called it Spain in the series.

It is well known that vikings did go down to the Meditarian Ocean, for instance it is known that the vikings did call Constantinople for Miklagard and that they did trade with Arabs both in Arab countries and in Scandinavian

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