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When the Arabs met the Vikings: New discovery suggests ancient links
The discovery of a silver ring with an Arabic inscription in a Viking grave has added credence to the ancient accounts of Arab travellers in their encounters with the Norsemen, and points to a fascinating trade and cultural exchange.
“I have never seen bodies as nearly perfect as theirs. As tall as palm trees, fair and reddish, they wear neither tunics nor kaftans. Every man wears a cloak with which he covers half of his body, so that one arm is uncovered. They carry axes, swords, daggers and always have them to hand. They use Frankish swords with broad, ridged blades.”
So the Arab traveller Ahmad Ibn Fadlan recorded his meeting more than 1,000 years ago with a strange race he called the “Rusiyyah”, now commonly known as Vikings.
Ibn Fadlan first met the Norse warriors as they travelled across the Russian steppes, sailing their longships down the Volga river and looking to trade with the Arab world.
There were women as well, who each wore “a small box made of iron, silver, brass or gold, depending on her husband’s financial worth and social standing, tied at her breasts. The box has a ring to which a knife is attached, also tied at her breasts.
“The women wear neck rings of gold and silver. When a man has amassed 10,000 dirhams, he has a neck ring made for his wife.
“When he has amassed 20,000 dirhams, he has two neck rings made. For every subsequent 10,000 dirhams, he gives a neck ring to his wife. This means a woman can wear many neck rings.”
Among the Arabs who encountered Vikings, the reaction was a mixture of horror and fascination. The knife worn by the women may have actually been a scoop for ear wax. The men were tattooed and performed brutal burial rituals that included killing female slaves.
Almost as bad, they were seen washing their faces and heads each day with “the filthiest and most polluted water”.
Travelling north at about the same time was Ibrahim Ibn Yacoub Al Tartushi, from what was then the Muslim kingdom of Al Andalus in Spain.
Reaching Schleswig, now the town of Hedeby on the border of Germany and Denmark, the Vikings lived in a society in which women could divorce whenever they liked and where both sexes wore “artificial eye make-up”, Al Tartushi wrote.
Even worse, was their singing: “ I never heard any more awful singing then the singing of the people in Schleswig. It is a groan that comes out of their throats, similar to the bark of the dogs but even more like a wild animal.”
The Arabs might have been largely unimpressed with the Vikings, but they made a big impression on the Norsemen, new archaeological discoveries show.
A rare ring with an inscription in Arabic has been uncovered at a Scandinavian site.
Professor Sebastian Warmlander, a biophysicist who is part of the research team that published its findings in March, says it is the only ring of this type ever found.
“The ring may therefore constitute material evidence for direct interactions between Viking Age Scandinavia and the Islamic world,” says Prof Warmlander.
“There are written sources speaking of Viking and Arabic travellers visiting each other. But it is difficult to know if these written documents are true. Finding physical objects of Islamic origin in Viking Age Sweden means that these written sources become more trustworthy.”
The non-gilded silver alloy ring was found in a 9th century woman’s grave at the Viking trading centre in Birka, Sweden.
It is set with a violet stone inscribed with Arabic Kufic writing, interpreted as reading “il-la-lah” (for “or to Allah”).
Source: www.thenational.ae