At the end of the silver flow. Islamic dirhams in Sigtuna and the shrinking Viking network.

Small ThingsWide HorizonsStudies in honour of

Birgitta Hårdh

Edited by

Lars Larsson, Fredrik Ekengren, Bertil Helgesson and Bengt Söderberg

Archaeopress Archaeology

Archaeopress Publishing LtdGordon House

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trinketsButtons as brooches 77Morten Axboe

Hand rings 82Torsten Capelle †

Gold in Guleboda 86A Byzantine gold coin from southern Småland

Martin Hansson

A little piece of silver from the Romele ridge area 91Bertil Helgesson

Two brooch-knobs and a handful of thoughts 97Karen Høilund Nielsen

Notices on the Notitia 104A comparison between heraldic insignia of late Roman military

units as depicted in Notitia Dignitatum and certain patterns on Scandinavian Migration Period jewellery like wrist clasps and relief brooches

Jan Peder Lamm

Close to Asgard – between West and South 110Lars Larsson

Shield-formed pendants and solar symbols of the Migration period 115

Bente Magnus

“Vikings in Bavaria” 121An unpublished spännbuckla from Munich and its history

Sonja Marzinzik & Michaela Helmbrecht

A female statement of power? 126Some reflections on the Viking Age Yelets-brooch

Michael Neiß

A Hind to your Health! 132Alexandra Pesch

Tabula 7

Preface 9

silverThe background and the early history of the neck rings

of the Glazov type (also called Permian) and the be-ginning of East-West connections in Early Medieval Northern Europe in the 8th and 9th centuries 13

Johan Callmer

The social weight of silver in the Íslendingasögur and the Viking Age hoards 20

Fredrik Ekengren & Maria Domeij Lundborg

100 Viking Age hoards of Bornholm 27Status, challenges and perspectives

Gitte Tarnow Ingvardson & Finn Ole Sonne Nielsen

Hoards and sinuous snakes 35Significance and meaning of ring ornaments in Early Viking Age

hoards from Gotland

Christoph Kilger

At the end of the silver flow 43Islamic dirhams in Sigtuna and the shrinking Viking network

Mats Roslund

coinsViking-Age coins found in Sweden 51Kenneth Jonsson

The earliest coin hoard of Lund 58Jens Christian Moesgaard

Nicholas of St. Albans, Anketil and Alfvini—three Dan-ish moneyers of English origin from the 12th and 13th centuries 64

Jørgen Steen Jensen

Three Crowns—Coin motive and (trans-)national sym-bol 69

Cecilia von Heijne

Contents

centralitySmall things and wide horizons from a Birka perspec-

tive 229Björn Ambrosiani & Ingrid Gustin

Detecting Vester Kærby 237Problems associated with the interpretation of metal-detector

finds from the plough soil

Mogens Bo Henriksen & Helle W. Horsnæs

Early medieval trading centres and transport systems between Dorestad, Ribe and Wolin 245

The latest results of the Priority Research Programme “Harbours from the Roman Iron Age to the Middle Ages”

Hauke Jöns

Quedlinburg before the Ottonian kings 253Approaches towards an early topography of power

Babette Ludowici

The relationship between Uppåkra and Lund—a status update 261

Ing-Marie Nilsson

The Trelleborg constructors 267Anders Ödman

transformationsFrom replica to relic—Gokstad goes abroad 275Bodil Petersson

Monumental make over? 281Remains of a long dolmen close to the ship-setting Ale’s stones.

Bengt Söderberg & Björn Wallebom

Vikings and the Western Frontier 289Jes Wienberg

dustDust to dust 297A short story of no-thing and every-thing

Jarl Nordbladh

List of contributors 301

Birgitta Hårdh—a Bibliography 303

burialsSmall items and major conclusions 141A discussion of the findings from Gullhögen, Old Uppsala

Birgit Arrhenius with contributions by Ingmar Jansson

Uncovering more Death 150Some recent excavations of graves from the Early Iron Age in

Scania

Tony Björk

Vester Galsted – an inhumation grave at P. Frey’s field 160Per Ethelberg

Rune-stones and the localisation of graves 169Burial customs in the Conversion period

Anne-Sofie Gräslund

Pidgirci (Western Ukraine) and Havor (Gotland, Swe-den)—two grave finds connected with Byzantine Christianity 175

Michael Müller-Wille

Pot and amulet pendants in the early mediaeval grave 130 of Frankfurt-Harheim 182

Uta von Freeden

craftsProduction of Scandinavian-style sword hilts on the

southern Baltic coast? 191A stray find, presumably dating to the Late Roman Iron Age,

from Lübsow / Lubieszewo in Poland

Andreas Rau, Ruth Blankenfeldt & Jan Schuster

Joining threads – a discussion of the archaeology of the tacit 199

Ulla Isabel Zagal-Mach Wolfe

farms and fieldsWhat did the Wells conceal? 211Hvissinge Vest – a Village from the Germanic Iron Age

Linda Boye

Medicinal herbs—useful and fatal 218Early traces of medicinal plants in Europe

Ulla Lund Hansen

7

Torbjörn Ahlström & Caroline Arcini, LundBjörn Ambrosiani, StockholmEva Andersson Strand, KøbenhavnGunnar Andersson, KistaKent Andersson, UppsalaAnders Andrén, StockholmJan Apel, LundBirgit Arrhenius, StockholmElse Asmussen, KøbenhavnMorten Axboe, KøbenhavnCharlotte Behr, LondonTony Björk, FärlövRuth Blankenfeldt, SchleswigLinda Boje, TaastrupMats & Nanouschka M. Burström, StockholmJohan Callmer, LundMaria Domeij Lundborg, ÖstersundJohannes, Helena, Edwine &Wilhelmina Edvardsson,

LundKjell Edvardsson, Lund Anna-Stina Ekedahl, HelsingborgFredrik Ekengren, LundFrédéric Elfver & Elisabet Regner, EnskedeLars Ersgård, LundPer Ethelberg, HaderslevCharlotte Fabech & Ulf Näsman, SvalövJan-Henrik Fallgren, AberdeenClaus Feveile, KertemindeJosefine Franck Bican, LyngbyJames Graham-Campbell, LondonAnne-Sofie Gräslund, UppsalaIngrid Gustin, LundMartin Hansson, LundRikard Hedvall & Karin Lindeblad, LinköpingBertil Helgesson, KristianstadMichaela Helmbrecht, MünchenMogens Bo Henriksen, OdenseHelle W. Horsnæs, KøbenhavnSusan Hydén, HöörKaren Høilund Nielsen, BederHenrik Janson, GöteborgIngemar Jansson, StockholmKristina Jennbert, LundKenneth Jonsson, StockholmHauke Jöns, Wilhelmshafen

Lars & Anne N. Jørgensen, BronshøjChristoph Kilger, VisbyAnnika Knarrström, AnnelövEgge Knol, GroningenKristina & Jan Peder Lamm, LidingöLars & Ulla-Karin Larsson, V. NöbbelövKerstin Lidén, LidingöBabette Ludowici, HanoverUlla Lund Hansen, KøbenhavnKarin Lundqvist, EslövBente Magnus, LidingöUlla Mannering, KøbenhavnSonja Marzinzik, MünchenJens Christian Moesgaard, KøbenhavnMichael Müller-Wille, KielMichael Neiß, UppsalaFinn Ole Nielsen, RønneIng-Marie Nilsson, KristianstadJarl & Elisabeth Nordbladh, Göteborg Deborah Olausson, LundAlexandra Pesch, SchleswigBodil Petersson, KalmarNeil Price & Linda Qviström, UppsalaPer H. Ramqvist, UmeåKlavs Randsborg, KøbenhavnAndreas Rau, SchleswigMads Ravn, VejleChristoph & Elke Reichmann, Krefeld Erika & Jerry Rosengren, LundMats Roslund, LundElisabeth Rudebeck, MalmöEva Rystedt, StockholmKatalin Schmidt Sabo, LundJan Schuster, ŁódźIben Skibsted Klesø, KokkedalPeter Skoglund, GöteborgDagfinn Skre, OsloBergljot M. Solberg, FanaJørgen Steen Jensen, KøbenhavnBengt Söderberg, LundGitte Tarnow Ingvardson, LundRaimond Thörn & Tove Hjørungdal, GöteborgLuc Van Impe, LeuvenClaus von Carnap-Bornheim, SchleswigUta von Freeden, Frankfurt am Main

Tabula Gratulatoria

Small Things – Wide Horizons

8

Avdelningen för Arkeologi vid Linnéuniversitetet, Kalmar

Den kgl. Mønt- og Medaillesamling, KøbenhavnNationalmuseet, KøbenhavnStatens Historiska Museer, Geoarkeologiska Laboratoriet,

Uppsala

Cecilia von Heijne, StockholmBjörn Wallebom, LundEgon Wamers, FrankfurtMargrethe Watt, DyssegårdNancy L. Wicker, Oxford, USAJens Wienberg, LundTorun Zacrisson, StockholmUlla Isabel Zagal-Mach Wolfe, LundWolf Haio & Gunthild Zimmermann, WilhelshavenAnders Ödman, Lund

9

Preface

The 16th of August 2015 is Professor Birgitta Hårdh’s 70th birthday. At the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History in Lund, an editorial group was set up for the publication of a Festschrift in her honour.

For several decades Birgitta has been an important staff member and researcher at the Department. Her doc toral dissertation was based on Viking Age silver deposits in southernmost Sweden. This is a field that she later developed in several national and international publications. As a result she is regarded as one of the leading experts on the Northern European Viking Age, engaged in diverse research projects both in Sweden and internationally, and she is a vital collaborator in various networks specializing in the Viking Age.

Through time, Birgitta has extended her research to comprise other periods in the Iron Age. This is particularly clear in her research on the major site of Uppåkra outside Lund. Here she has devoted articles to a detailed treatment of the finds from the Late Iron Age. She has also edited several of the volumes in the series Uppåkrastudier, with both national and international contributions.

Another special field examined by Birgitta Hårdh is the megalithic graves in south-west Scania. Both find material from individual sites and broader perspectives on the Middle Neolithic have been covered in these studies.

Besides doing research, Birgitta Hårdh has for several decades been a lecturer and professor, with long experience of teaching students and supervising doctoral candidates in the subject. She has also been director of studies and served on a number of committees in the Faculty of Arts and Theology.

A feature common to all Birgitta Hårdh’s research is that she has been able, through analysis of a body of finds, to broaden the perspective, not least geographically through her profound knowledge of phenomena in Northern Europe and indeed all of Europe. This book has been given the title Small Things – Wide Horizons, which is a good summary of Birgitta’s research hitherto.

Thanks to the large network of contacts to which Birgitta Hårdh belongs, the call for papers for this Festschrift met a great response. A total of fourty titles were submitted to the proposed volume.

Through this Festschrift we wish to thank and honour Pro-fessor Birgitta Hårdh as a fine colleague and an excellent scholar. We all look forward to coming years and many more important contributions to archaeological research.

Lars Larsson, Fredrik Ekengren, Bertil Helgesson, Bengt Söderberg

Birgitta Hårdh

43

upheaval mostly connected to Rurik and his brothers. However, it is not until the start of the tenth century that the Islamic part of the network became fully developed under a new possibly Iranian dynasty. The Samanid rulers initiated a sequence of expansion in today’s eastern Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. With their control of the most important silver mines in the East, they flooded the North with dirhams, to pay for the riches of the forests: wax, honey, furs and slaves.

At the same time as the Samanids expanded, we can discern a change among the middlemen (Martin 1986, 12 ff; Noonan 1984, 276ff.; Franklin & Shepard 1996, 61 ff.; Kovalev 2004, 99ff.; Kovalev 2011, 46). From c. 900, two tracks were available for the purchase of silver for the Rus’. One of them led through Khazar territories, used since the late eighth century and holding its ground until 965, when the Rus’ prince Svyatoslav crushed their core sites. During the first phase of the dirham import into Scandinavia to the late ninth century, Khazaria controlled the most important routes, expressed in their high level of organization, with urban centres, stone forts and some minting. Khazar imitations of Islamic coins were struck just before 825, arriving in Rus’ and the Baltic region immediately afterwards. In the second half of the ninth century, Volga Bulgar groups established themselves in the Volga-Kama area, challenging Khazar supremacy. Already at the turn of the century the silver network gravitated towards the Volga-Bulgars, since they had access to Khwaresm east of the Caspian Sea on a land route north of it. The Volga Bulgars were subjects of Khazaria until the mid-tenth century, when they stopped paying tribute.

Why are the dirhams found in Sigtuna interesting? Since the town itself was established in c. 980, we get a date for the earliest possible deposit of these single finds. Some of the coins have been retrieved from much later contexts, which give interesting facts about the circulation sequence. A last point to emphasize is that the presence itself strengthens the argument for continuity between Birka and Sigtuna, even if their urban origins and socio-economic backgrounds differed.

The Sigtuna dirhams

Nine dirhams have been found in Sigtuna to date (2014) (table I and fig. 1). The small number underlines the fact

Abstract

In this paper, a classic subject will be addressed: the last import of Islamic dirhams into Scandinavia. The place under study is Sigtuna, established in c. AD 980, a date that sets the earliest possible deposition for nine retrieved dirhams. The main objec-tive is to provide data for their chronology and provenance, and to confirm under which regent they were issued. With this data at hand, an analysis will be made, connecting them with their inter-national background. The reason for their appearance in Sigtu-na will be addressed, as well as the difference in the circulation compared to the urban predecessor Birka. I will conclude the article by stressing the continuous need for interregional trade from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, with the aim of acquiring raw materials and socially ostentatious objects, but with dimin-ishing distances covered.

The well-known import of Islamic silver to Russia, the Baltic states, Poland, Germany and Scandinavia started in the late eighth century and came to an end at the beginning of the eleventh. A sequence that initially looks simple soon becomes more diverse and interesting when the difference between date and place of issues for the dirhams is contrasted with their time of deposition in Scandinavia. Contrasts like these give us the opportunity to study trade networks, geopolitics and power relations. A focus on both the exporting regions and the receiving end of the trail is extremely important if we are to grasp the fluctuations.

The very beginning of the import is connected to the Khazar-Arab peace in the Caucasus from the second half of the eighth century and a shift in Abbasid geopolitics (Noonan 1984, 250). With a network open south and north of the Caspian Sea, an already existing demand for furs and slaves increased rapidly. Wealth from the newly established Abbasid capital Baghdad and economic rise in the region around it increased a luxury demanding population. From the last decades of the eighth century Scandinavians opened up a stream of dirhams that were channelled from Islamic lands through Rus’. From c. 875 to c. 900 this initial network was disrupted, as seen in a diminishing flow of Islamic silver (Noonan 1985; Callmer 2000, 38 and 59). Since silver still was minted and circulated in the Caliphate, this was not caused by events at the source, but by unrest on the trade routes across the Russian steppes. At the northern end of the network, the old system of cohabitation around lake Ladoga, along the Volkhov and Dnepr, was put to a violent end, the

At the end of the silver flow

Islamic dirhams in Sigtuna and the shrinking Viking network

Mats Roslund

Copyright material: no unauthorized reproduction in any medium


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that we are at the end of the silver flow from Eurasia, but the silver nevertheless contributes to our knowledge about the last trickles. There are two Abbasid dirhams and five Samanid dirhams in the small collection, together with two unidentified dirhams. Judging by the rulers, a spread over a long period is seen.

Not all of the coins have been assigned to a period, regent or place of origin, due to corrosion and lack of information. If we first turn to the dates of issue, two dirhams from the Guldet block stand out. Found on different occasions, the two late ninth century Abbasid coins from the time span c. 847 to 897 occur in Sigtuna. The coins were at least 83–133 years old before they came to rest in the soil. The rulers al-Mu’tadid, al-Muttawakkil or his son al-Mu’tamid were long gone from Baghdad and Samarra. One of the Abbasid dirhams was issued in al-Kufah, 170 km south of Baghdad along the Euphrates, in the centre of the Caliphate. The next sequence of dirhams are Samanid, spread from c. 904 to 954, with an emphasis on the first two decades of the tenth century. The dirhams of the Samanid era are from two of the largest mints, Samarqand and al-Shash, and one from the secondary mint in Balkh.

The conditions of the finds reveals their biographies. The two Abbasid dirhams from the Guldet block are both whole, although the one from Guldet 6 is very fragmented due to corrosion (table I; 1, 2). Four of the Samanid dirhams were used as pendants, and thus handled by generations before Sigtuna was established (table I; 3 (10), 4 (11), 5, 8), but the one from the block Trekanten is not re-used as jewellery (table I; 7). The dirham fragment in the Urmakaren block was found in the house of a mint, established by Olof Skötkonung in the 990s. It was discovered among the equipment for minting, probably kept as scrap metal. The remaining dirham from Sankt Lars (table I; 6) has not been studied, since its repository is unknown.

The mass production of coined silver at the Samanid mints was at its height between 900 and 920. After they were struck, the dirhams were very quickly brought to Scandinavia. According to numerical and statistical data, 73% to 78% of all Samanid coins came to the North before 930 and almost half of them in the preceding two decades (Noonan 1989, 299; Kovalev 2002–2003, 49).

Fig. 1. Six of the nine dirhams found in Sigtuna. Numbers according to Table I. a) 1 al-Mu’tadid, al-Kufah; b) 2 al-Muttawakkil or al-Mu’tamid, unknown mint; c) 3 Nasr ibn Ahmad, al-Shash;

d) 5 Isma’il ibn Ahmad, Balkh; e) 7 Nuh ibn Nasr, unknown mint; f) 8 Ahmad ibn Isma’il, Samarkand.

Photos by the author.

Table I. Dirhams found in Sigtuna, Sweden. Abbreviation Sf refers to Sigtuna Fornhem, SML to Sveriges Mynthistoria

Landskapsinventeringen and KMK to Kungliga Myntkabinettet.


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The dirhams in Sigtuna bridge the time gap between the closure of Birka and the new town, stressing the continuity in place, if not in politics and economic exchange. The Islamic coins in Birka were highly fragmented, especially those from mid-ninth century (Gustin 2011, 241). Those found in Sigtuna were not. The only certain fragment in the later town was retrieved from the mint, probably meant for reuse in the production for Olof’s issues. The Sigtuna dirhams show a chronological sequence in a continuum with the Birka complex. In Birka, 47% of the Islamic coins from three recent excavations were struck from the seventh to the ninth century (Gustin 2004, 107, table 4). Only two out of nine dated dirhams were pre-890 in Sigtuna. In the later deposits from the Black Earth excavations in 1990–1995, dated from mid-tenth century to the abandonment of Birka c. 970, between 50% and 74% of the coins were post-890 (Gustin 2011, 239). A bias towards Samanid coins in Sigtuna stresses continuity between the centres and a probable beginning for the settlement very shortly after Birka was abandoned (Thordeman 1926, Jonsson 2003). A similar observation of cultural continuation can be made in pottery consumption, as Sigtuna has about 80% local Late Viking Age ware in the late tenth-century households, as in Birka (Roslund 2007, 411, fig. 145).

The information retrieved from Birka and Sigtuna stresses one interesting observation connected to late Viking Age east–west interaction. Obviously, we see cultural continuity between the emporia, but at the same time there was a political and social break in the late Viking Age network. Scholars in numismatics have pointed out that the decline of Islamic coins in Sweden from c. 950 did not coincide with the situation in European Russia (Noonan 1989, 300; Noonan 1990, 254 ff.; Johansson 1997; Landgren 1998; Leimus 2007). On the other side of the Baltic, imports to Kievan Rus’ contained Samanids struck even in the 980s, and later dynasties dominated the hoards in Kievan Rus’ until the mid-eleventh century. The catastrophic reduction of Islamic minted silver had an impact on trade. The import reduction was thus a problem faced by the Svear. The silver import to Scandinavia had been severely struck by political unrest in Rus’ already in the second half of the ninth century. Why did the new economic situation not also become resilient after the late tenth-century crisis? As a last part of this essay, I will connect this diminishing flow of Islamic silver to Birka and Sigtuna with a wider world of interaction.

Hypotheses on the diminishing silver import

The reasons behind the loss of dirhams in the North were certainly complex. Beginning in the Far East, we move on to the west, by the Middle East, Russia and the Baltic.

If we start from a global perspective, there is a connection between the end of the stable T’ang dynasty in China and the disruption of the Samanid dominion. Changes within Chinese society from 907 caused problems in the Kansu or Hexi corridor, connecting China with Sogdiana and the Caucasus (Haussig 1987, 540). Movement through this

The dated dirhams in Sigtuna fit well into this situation, even if they circulated in society for a very long time. This was common, especially regarding the Abbasid and early tenth-century Samanid dirhams (Rispling 2007, 61). As a rule, the older the dirhams are, the longer the time of circulation. The same issues as the Sigtuna coins, but found in hoards circulated between 28 and 49 years, the Abbasids even longer, with a mean up to 65 years.

Coin import in Birka in the late tenth century and the Sigtuna connection

When addressing the question of when and why the Islamic dirhams ceased to be imported into Sweden, we are also faced with the question about changes in the late tenth century. In the lake Mälaren district, Birka came to an end as a political and economic centre, and Sigtuna was established further north in the same water system. One issue when discussing this change has been whether or not the succession should be seen as a break with old networks and the creation of something totally new. Therefore, a short excursion to Sigtuna’s predecessor is needed.

The minted silver in Birka consisted mainly of Islamic coins (Kyhlberg 1973; Jonsson 2001; Gustin 2004; Rispling 2004; Gustin 2011). The beginning of the time span is represented by an early Ummayyad dirham from a tenth-century jetty area, struck in 712/713, and another found in the Black Earth excavations in 1990–1995, dated to 698–749. The latest confirmed coin is a Samanid minted in 964/965, found during the excavations in 1990–1995. Within this time frame, considerable differences can be seen in the time of issue and the time of deposition. Even the main bulk of the early eighth- and ninth-century coins were deposited after a long time of circulation, together with tenth-century fellow-travellers (Gustin 2004, 99; Gustin 2011, 236).

An outline of the imports has been suggested, revealing a chronological deposition of the varying Islamic issues in Birka as five stages from the mid-eighth to the tenth century (see Gustin 2004, fig. 6:2; fig. 6:3; fig. 6:4). Firstly, we have an inflow of a minor amount of silver in the late eighth- and early ninth century. A second stage is stressed c. 890, when an increasing amount of coins can be seen. The third stage is emphasized by the first two decades of the tenth century, when the import peaked. Already in the fourth stage, in the third decade of the tenth century, a decrease is discerned, although the inflow is greater than in the following last decades. An evident loss of imports is seen after c. 940/950, when the silver flow dwindled. As a fifth stage, there was a final decline in the 960s. This is important information in relation to Sigtuna. Obviously, Birka still held a position in international connections at this time. There were probably also activities in the Garrison until the second half of the tenth century, judging by artefactual evidence (Jonsson 2001, 31; Holmquist Olausson & Kitzler Åhfeldt 2002, 16).



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included geographical displacement towards the south, since Kiev had been the most important political node in the network since the late ninth century (Callmer 1981, p. 35 ff.). Barrows with conspicuous wealth, such as the Chernaya Mogila at Chernigov, are concentrated on the north–south axis along the Dnepr (Franklin & Shepard 1996, 121 ff.). Older settlements such as Gnezdovo expanded just before the mid-tenth century and Novgorod emerged as an important node. Simultaneously, the shift in consumption patterns from Islamic to Byzantine coins in Kiev indicates changes in long distance trade connections in the tenth century (Callmer 1981, p. 44). This new situation must have changed the flow of silver as it was kept east of the Baltic.

Olga’s successors on the Kievan throne defended her expanded realm. Svyatoslav (964–972), Yaropolk (972–980) and Vladimir Svyatoslavich (980–1015) expanded the dominion to the north, west and east. Vladimirs attack on the Volga Bulgars in 985 could have been an effort to reduce their thriving monopoly in Islamic trade and secure a route to the silver. He could not break them, but they agreed on a treaty, permitting free trade and security for travellers. The agreement held until the beginning of the thirteenth century (Martin 1986, 15). It had immense impact on Kievan Rus’, triggering urbanization in the area between the Dnepr and Volga in the tenth to twelfth centuries with several new towns, such as Rostov, Suzdal’, Staraya Ryazan, Moscow, Vladimir, and Pereyaslavl’ Zalesskii. Especially Suzdal’ became a very important node in the contacts between Islamic regions and northern Europe.

Other reasons than trade for the movement of silver must be pointed out. Dirhams from upper Mesopotamia and south-central Anatolia were carried into Central Europe by Varangian mercenaries engaged in the Byzantine-Arab wars during the mid-tenth and early eleventh centuries, even though in minor quantities (Kovalev 2011, 65). Thus, the reasons for a diminishing dirham flow were full of nuances. Nevertheless, the discontinuation of long-range travel stretching from Scandinavia to Khwaresm, and even Baghdad, is obvious in the arrangement of the trans-Eurasian network after c. 950.

A shrinking Viking world

An ongoing reduction of travelling distances in Eurasia can be discerned from the late eighth to the beginning of the eleventh century. When the ar-Rus’ went into the deep forests in the Baltic Finnic, Volga Finnic and Permian regions along the Volkhov, Kama and Volga rivers, they also went all the way to Khwarezm and on occasions to Baghdad. In the ninth century Khazarian interests had established a well-functioning control over east–west trade, succeeded by Volga Bulgar supremacy after the former empire’s demise in 965. The Volga Bulgars controlled the route from Khwarezm already in the early tenth century, as ibn-Fadlan tells us. From c. 900 there are

area was vital for the extraction of Far Eastern goods to the West. Under the Mongol Khitan Empire the migration of Turkic-speaking peoples westwards incited political unrest for the Islamic dynasties.

War was not the sole reason for the diminishing export of Samanid dirhams. After over a century of issuing millions of silver coins, the mines were less productive, during a period of political decline (Kovalev 2001, 264 ff.; Kovalev 2002–2003, 70 f.). The destruction of the dynasty came in 999, at the hands of the Qarakhanids and Ghaznavids. Other dynasties represented in hoards in Rus’, the Baltic and Scandinavia were Hamndanid, Buwayhid, Ziyarid, Marwanid, Uqaylid and Ilekhanid, coming in until 1015–1020, with a geographic diversity emphasizing the extremely regional nature of this production (Johansson 1997, 18; Leimus 2007, 117; Kovalev 2011, 76 and 91). Leimus suggests a network stretching from Mesopotamia, over the Black Sea and the Dnepr to Pskov and the Peipus Lake for parts of this late Islamic import (Leimus 2007, 119). Other reasons behind the trickle of dirhams to Scandinavia thus must be sought than political change and debasement of the dirhams.

Other sources of information confirm that the northern axis of the network also still functioned, only with temporary losses in intensity (Martin 1986, 17 ff.; Noonan 2001, 213; Kovalev 2002–2003, 72; Kovalev 2005). Along the well-known Silk and Fur Roads between the Islamic world and Kievan Rus’, trade flourished in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. New urban centres were also established in Kievan Rus’ along the northern route, such as Suzdal’ in the first half of the tenth century, Rostov c. 963 and Jaroslavl ca 1000 AD. Qarakhanid and Ghaznavid courts still had access to mines and exchanged silver for furs with Volga Bulgaria. However, dirhams did not reach the Baltic in any great numbers. It has been stated that the main reason behind the concentration of wealth in Kievan Rus’ was the territorialization of power, internal trade and increasing consumption of commodities from the mid-tenth to the beginning of the eleventh century.

In 947, Princess Olga of Kiev started to tap into existing trading centres and toll stations along the rivers. She organised pogosts, places where her retinue collected taxes, and regulated hunting grounds for fur procurement (Franklin & Shepard 1996, 133 ff.). This action did not only give the princes of Kievan Rus’ an income, but also stopped the diminishing Islamic silver flow to reach the West. She tried to hold a firm grip on the riches in the northern part of Rus’ at her family estate in Pskov. From the upper Dnepr in the confluence with the Western Dvina, to the river Luga in the north-west running into the Gulf of Finland, as well as the river Msta connected to lake Ilmen, she made a fortune from taxes. Her pogosts gave a constant flow of revenues to the Rurikid dynasty, much more stable than expropriations done before. Negotiations with Byzantium resulted in her own conversion to Christianity, but more important were treaties for trade between Kievan Rus’ and Constantinople. Territorialization of power also


47


Fully developed east–west interaction, from Novgorod to Schleswig, is discerned from the three last decades of the late eleventh century. The Svear focused on Novgorod, resulting in a large amount of Kievan Rus’ and Byzantine artefacts brought into Sigtuna. Trade increased rapidly at the beginning of the twelfth century, as can be seen in a growing volume of Byzantine wine amphorae and other artefacts from Kievan Rus’. But also the “Danish/German” presence became stronger from 1100 onwards, with a noticeable inflow of continental merchants in the second half of the century.

The nine dirhams in High Medieval Sigtuna are a humble amount compared to the large hoards from earlier centuries. They are however a telltale sign of the end of a long-distance network starting at the end of the eighth century, and a new era. In the new millennium, the inhabitants of Sigtuna had German and English coins chinking in their purses by lake Mälaren.

Acknowledgements

The work is a part of a larger study funded by Gunnar Ekströms Stiftelse för Numismatisk Forskning, for which I am deeply grateful. Thanks to Cecilia von Heijne, Kenneth Jonsson and Gert Rispling for support on dirham issues, Johan Callmer and Ingrid Gustin for reading and commenting on the text, Volker Hillberg in Schleswig for reading suggestions and Alan Crozier for revising the English.

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Taking the Volga route from Sweden and northern Rus’, the merchants still travelled far, but seem to have come to the end of their trail among the Bulgars by the first half of the tenth century (Martin 1986, 11). Here, they met silk, metal vessels and other riches from the East brought on camels’ and donkeys’ backs over land north of the Caspian Sea, or through the Caucasus and along the Volga. At the end of the tenth century, the segmentation of the route between Scandinavia, Kievan Rus’ and Volga Bulgars was a part of a comprehensive change in northern Europe.

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After Birka, Sigtuna appeared on the urban stage as a possible partner for exchange. There was dynamic development through the High Middle Ages (Roslund 1997; Roslund 2007, 512 ff.; Roslund 2009; Roslund 2010). During the first 25 to 30 years after being established in the late tenth century, Sigtuna had a locally based resident population, as can be seen in the small number of archaeological findings of textile implements, cooking pots, and dispersed remains from artisans, in simple wattle-and-daub houses. A new mercantile network seems to have stabilized in the first decade of the eleventh century. The beginning of exchange in Sigtuna in the new millennium is connected primarily to Kievan Rus’, but also appears as a vague “Danish/German” presence from the early eleventh century. From the very beginning of the renewed trading contacts, minted silver from mines in the Harz Mountains became the most common medium for exchange. Changes in mid-century indicate strengthening ties in this direction.



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At the end of the silver flow. Islamic dirhams in Sigtuna and the shrinking Viking network.

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Transcript of At the end of the silver flow. Islamic dirhams in Sigtuna and the shrinking Viking network.