Viking ring reveals Swedens ancient Islamic ties

This is pretty neat. The ring was found in a grave near Birka on Björkö Island in the Stockholm archipelago in the late 1800s, made of silver alloy and is andorned with coloured glass, which was an expensive and exotic material at the time, engrave with the ancient Arabic script spelling the word 'for allah'. Other objects found in the grave indicated a woman had been buried there at around 850 AD.

www.thelocal.se... ties

What facinating tale such artifact can have.
Could it be a Arabic woman who settled down in Birka?
Was it traded, stolen or something entirely else?

I love how the old world seemed to have connections to each other, just like the story about that roman coin found in a chinese tomb for some time ago.

With the seafaring, piracy, and trading links of the time, it's not to difficult to arrive at the circumstances of what brought this object to that location. It is interesting and entertaining to speculate on the items journey of ownership.

a reply to: ypperst
"Illustrates" rather than "reveals".
The Swedish adventurers established a well-known trading route to Constantinople via the Russian rivers and the Black Sea. Founding the state of Russia on the way. From there it was only a short run to the Muslim levant and Cairo (or they could probably buy goods of Muslim origin in the Byzantine world).

Another possibility is that the woman herself was wife or slave of one of them.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan's ring ?

a reply to: ypperst

Here is something to accompany the thread, viking lenses discovered in Gotland, Sweden....

These remarkable "lenses" (also called the Visby Lenses) were discovered in Viking graves on the Baltic Sea island of Gotland, Sweden. They have such unbelievable imaging properties that attempts to optimize their performance using computers has failed - pretty good considering they are over 800 years old!!
Do they remind you of something else that is steeped in mystery, is crystal like and also displays amazing manufacturing qualities (the Crystal skulls).

After several years of painstaking analyses, eyeglass experts have now confirmed that the ground rock crystal objects from the 12th century found in Swedish Viking graves were made almost to perfection.
If the lens is placed on a text page, the effect is the same as that obtained with a modern magnification glass measuring 5cm in diameter. It was not until the 17th century that mathematician René Descartes successfully made theoretical calculations about aspherical lenses. However, this precision technology was not known to have been used in practice before the 20th century.
So how did they develop such sophisticated optical devices 8 centuries ago? Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley now want to further investigate the sensational "Viking" lenses. It is generally believed that the unusual items were originally manufactured in Byzantium, where they were purchased or stolen by the Vikings.

Klaus Dona
Ancient-Hebrew.org
Wikipedia

originally posted by: Gothmog
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan's ring ?

Star just for the movie reference

originally posted by: SprocketUK

originally posted by: Gothmog
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan's ring ?

Star just for the movie reference

13th
Star for your knowing

a reply to: Sublimecraft

Uh I remember those, thanks for bringing that up.

Dem' old folks could something back then which we probably wont ever understand

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: SprocketUK

originally posted by: Gothmog
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan's ring ?

Star just for the movie reference

13th
Star for your knowing

One of my all time fave films that one.

Lo, there do I see my father.
Lo, there do I see my mother.
And my sister and my brother
Lo, there do I see the line of my people
Back to the beginning.
Lo, they do call to me.
They bid me take my place among them
In the halls of Valhalla
Where the brave may live forever.

a reply to: Gothmog

The 13th Warrior @ Antonio Banderas🤓

Vikings were the slavers of the post Roman world and sold slaves from Britannia and the northern European coasts as far as Byzantium. Slaves were their booty from raids on farm and fishing villages.

originally posted by: ypperst

This is pretty neat. The ring was found in a grave near Birka on Björkö Island in the Stockholm archipelago in the late 1800s, made of silver alloy and is andorned with coloured glass, which was an expensive and exotic material at the time, engrave with the ancient Arabic script spelling the word 'for allah'. Other objects found in the grave indicated a woman had been buried there at around 850 AD.

www.thelocal.se... ties

What facinating tale such artifact can have.
Could it be a Arabic woman who settled down in Birka?
Was it traded, stolen or something entirely else?

I love how the old world seemed to have connections to each other, just like the story about that roman coin found in a chinese tomb for some time ago.

Well they sailed all over and it's not hard to believe they made it to the coasts of North Africa and the Middle East.

The byzantine empire hired vikings as an elite unit in their armies

a reply to: Gothmog

i was just about to post that. they even made a movie about it.

originally posted by: CulturalResilience
With the seafaring, piracy, and trading links of the time, it's not to difficult to arrive at the circumstances of what brought this object to that location.

Indeed. People often forget (or don't know) that the Vikings were very successful traders. They certainly had trade routes into the Mediterranean from the Atlantic, and via the Black Sea.

It's amazing what our ancestors got up to.

Sweet now they can reunite.


Mission Accomplished.

a reply to: ypperst

My precious!

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: SprocketUK

originally posted by: Gothmog
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan's ring ?

Star just for the movie reference

13th
Star for your knowing

I didn't see the movie bit I read the book. "Eaters of the Dead" - by Michael Crighton.

a reply to: ypperst

Makes a change from subsarah Africa trying to steal someone elses culture and history.

originally posted by: ypperst

The ring was found in a grave near Birka on Björkö Island in the Stockholm ...engrave with the ancient Arabic script spelling the word 'for allah'.

Karma is a bitch, ain't it?

So, the Vikings of Sweden raided and plundered Islamic lands way down in the Mediterranean, hundreds of years ago, bringing back artifacts and treasures of Islamic design, evidence of how far afield those brave Victorious Vikings traveled.
Those were the days when "raiding and plunder" were acceptable forms of transactions between different peoples, providing the essential "motivation" bringing them into contact with each other.

So, now the modern Muslims invade Sweden, entering as refugees, the modern acceptable "motivation" for migrations, and the Swedes complain about all these foreigners coming in, invading their land, and disrupting their "peaceful" society.

Hmmm...who is in the right?

originally posted by: AMPTAH

originally posted by: ypperst

The ring was found in a grave near Birka on Björkö Island in the Stockholm ...engrave with the ancient Arabic script spelling the word 'for allah'.

Karma is a bitch, ain't it?

So, the Vikings of Sweden raided and plundered Islamic lands way down in the Mediterranean, hundreds of years ago, bringing back artifacts and treasures of Islamic design, evidence of how far afield those brave Victorious Vikings traveled.
Those were the days when "raiding and plunder" were acceptable forms of transactions between different peoples, providing the essential "motivation" bringing them into contact with each other.

So, now the modern Muslims invade Sweden, entering as refugees, the modern acceptable "motivation" for migrations, and the Swedes complain about all these foreigners coming in, invading their land, and disrupting their "peaceful" society.

Hmmm...who is in the right?

Did you miss the posts above about trade? The Vikings would not have ruined their business by attacking their trading partners and would have had their butts handed to them had they raided Byzantium.