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Written By: Raneem Al-Saaidi
Article Date: Mar 10, 2009 - 7:47:51 AM
STOCKHOLM - Swedish archaeologists discovered a rare cache of Viking-era Arab silver coins near Stockholm’s Arlanda airport last April.
The site, which has been dated to the early Iron Age, has been found to contain around 470 coins. The ages of the coins vary from the 7th to the 9th centuries, a period during which Viking traders travelled widely.
The coins are thought to have been left at the site around AD850, and most of them were minted in either Baghdad and Damascus, though some came from Persia and North Africa. Although no human remains have been found at the site, archaeologists believe that the cache could have been buried by the Vikings in the hope that it would be protected by their descendants as they settled in a nearby village. The coins may have been brought to Sweden by the Vikings through trade, as they are known to have travelled in the Baltic region and Russia from the late 8th to the 11th century. They are also known to have travelled as far as North Africa and Constantinople (now Istanbul).
There has been no similar find in this area of Sweden since a discovery made in the 1880s. Archaeologists also believe that some of the coins could have accompanied Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, who was kidnapped by the Vikings. Fadlan, originally from Baghdad, was sent to serve as the secretary to an ambassador of the Abbasid Caliph al-Muqtadir in the area of iltabar, or Bulgars in the year 921, which is in present day Russia.
Ahmed Ibn Fadlan took an interest in the daily life of the Vikings and later wrote a detailed account on their actions during several events, he called his book ’Letters On the Vikings’.
In his accounts he describes the Vikings as dirty barbarians who eat the flesh of their dead. Below is an extract from his work ’Letters On the Vikings’
“Every morning a girl comes and brings a tub of water, and places it before her master. In this he proceeds to wash his face and hands, and then his hair, he then combs his hair over the vessel. Thereupon he blows his nose, and spits into the tub, leaving the sum of his dirt in this water. When he has finished, the girl carries the tub to the man next to him, who does the same. Thus she continues carrying the tub from one man to another until each man has blown his nose and spits into the same tub, and washed his face and hair.”
Ahmed Ibn Fadlan wrote many interesting things about the lives of the Vikings, and he provides us with a great insight into their daily lives from an Arab perspective. His accounts of Scandinavia show just how far Arab ancestors had travelled all those thousands of years ago.