The Vikings got around
For absolutely no reason except curiosity I was looking up the Vikings the other day, and came across this:
Spices were obtained [by the Vikings] from Chinese and Persian traders, who met with the Viking traders in Russia.
I already knew that the Vikings got around, but that impressed me. In fact, though, there was a a tremendous amount of world trade back then—“back then” being the 8th to 11th centuries.
And in case you wondered—no, Viking warriors did not wear horned helmets.
Viking helmets were conical, made from hard leather with wood and metallic reinforcement for regular troops. The iron helmet with mask and mail was for the chieftains, based on the previous Vendel-age helmets from central Sweden.
Viking art was highly stylized and ornate, as well as extremely skilled. For example, here’s one of their wood carvings:
And the detail on this Viking ship that now resides in a museum in Oslo just blew me away:
I’ve noticed before that our distant ancestors, even the ones often thought to be brutish and boorish, seemed very intent on creating things of beauty even on utilitarian objects.
That is beautiful wood carving by the Vikings!
Some of the most beautiful and intricate carvings I’ve seen were in jade at the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
Well, you know, you gotta do *something* in the off-season.
The earliest Russian empire may have been founded by Vikings.
The Vikings are famous for their conquering and raiding, but a lot of that may have just been fleeing. When King Harald Fairhair united Norway, a lot of the tribes on the losing end escaped.
We have become so dependent on modern technology and machinery that we can’t understand how past societies built without Bucyrus-Erie cranes and Caterpillar bulldozers. Likewise with trade, we are amazed that past societies had the cultural reach that they did.
Even before the 8th to the 11th centuries, the ancient Egyptians (2500 B.C.) used Lapis Lazuli. Their closest known source of this semi-precious stone was Afghanistan, about 2000 miles away.
May be of interest to those here:
http://www.dienekes.blogspot.com/2016/03/bronze-age-war-in-northern-germany.html
There are a number of web sites discussing this.
One of the more persuasive descriptions I have seen, from a Serbian blogger, describes it not in terms of a set-piece battle between two armies, but as a possible ambush of an armed caravan of bronze traders as they used the local causeway through the marsh.
As the genetic analysis shows the involvement of distinct population groups (but with no certain information on mixing or alignment at this time), and as the bones of women and children were found as well, any finding that the women and children all matched the southern European bronze users, would add credence to the idea that it was an ambush of a bronze trader caravan.
The all too common ignorance, especially in today’s young, who cavalierly dismiss the accomplishments of prior generations was brought home to me in 1985, when the rock group ‘Starship’, released their debut hit’, “We Built This City”. The lyrics describe a city built purely on rock and roll (music), referring to San Francisco, Cleveland, New York and Las Vegas.
The single version reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 and also number one on the US Top Rock Tracks chart and number twelve in the UK.
A solid argument can be made that, since “the greatest generation”, in the aggregate, each new generation is increasingly less capable. Witness today’s “snowflakes”, who are frightened by “Trump 2016!” being scrawled on sidewalks and the sides of buildings. Who feel that their ‘safe spaces’ are threatened.
The Swedish History Museum in Stockholm has wonderful collection of Viking relics. Wood carvings, silver and bronze coins and ornaments, metal works, etc. Well worth a visit if you are in Sweden even just for a one day stop over. The Vikings roamed the seas and rivers from the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic, the Artic Ocean, and deep into modern day Russia. They reached Iceland, Greenland, and North American 400 to 500 years before other Europeans.
They did it in small, elegant vessels across uncharted seas. Crossing the North Atlantic in those sail and oar propelled boats was an act of courage and resourcefulness. Its a shame their progeny have become meek and mild before the islamic invasion.
Geoffrey Britain,
Perhaps the hope is that such regression is not an end but a portion of a repeating cycle. Unfortunately, if so, it s a cycle that most of us will not see repeated in our lifetime.
Furthermore, never forget that we live at a time when even the most absurd and insignificant claim has access to an international microphone which makes its voice seem larger, more immediate and more valid than it is in fact.
Watch Werner hertzogs film cave of forgotten dreams about Newly discovered cave paintings. You see tha humans shares a high level of art and trade in European for tens of thousands of years. The accomplishments were astonishing.
Lots of idle time between raids and monitoring their slaves.
But, right, they didn’t get credit for the extent of their exploration, trade, art and mythology.
They also seemed to be able to assimilate their conquered, or maybe, more appropriately, meld with them (cultural appropriation?). For instance, in their one time UK capital at York, a rather thriving city/town of the time, it seems they stamped coins that had both Christian and Viking symbols.
The Vikings were in North America before Columbus.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35935725
“Lots of idle time between raids and monitoring their slaves.” [Big Maq]
Big Maq,
With all respect to alternative points of view, one of the greatest popular fallacies is that traditions of art arise from filling idle time. In early societies they were not just passing the time but grew from a very important relationship with the surrounding world.
A case in point is the prehistoric cave paintings in France (Lascaux being the most well known). What people don’t realize is that these paintings were back in the inner reaches of the cave; locations that were always removed from the living area and most often very difficult to get to.
Extrapolate that. We have a primitive hunting-gathering culture that will not eat tomorrow if the hunt today is unsuccessful. Yet, these people are grinding minerals into dust, mixing that dust with some sort of vehicle (presumably animal fat) creating portable sources of light (some type of torch) and some sort of rudimentary brush and transporting that equipment (sometimes crawling) through the darkest, least accessible portions of the cave to paint those images.
The most commonly accepted theory is that these images were intended to capture the spirit of a given animal or species and become the target of a ritual hunt (we have evidence of spears being thrown at some images). Kill the spirit in the ritual hun and you increase the chance of success in the upcoming real hunt.
From its very inception, art (and more broadly THE arts) served important cultural functions which we today tent to largely ignore oftentimes because we have removed our lives several stages from the reality around us.
Well, there is often one reason for leaving something more permanent behind.
People want to leave some evidence they existed and leave some marking of it. I think plenty of ordinary people like to think they left something behind someone might consider worthwhile after they are gone.
Nick Says:
April 9th, 2016 at 2:14 pm
The earliest Russian empire may have been founded by Vikings.
%%
Russian and Ukrainian digs have removed ALL doubt.
The first Tsars were Norsemen. Their burial goods are laden with runes // runic inscriptions.
BTW, the very word ‘Viking’ means PIRATE to Norsemen.
All Vikings are Norsemen — but not vice versa.
Kiev is situated at the (most significant) Dnieper rapids. The Norsemen were paying off the locals to haul their boats up and over the rapids.
The Slavs had no access to the high quality timber that the Norsemen were using to build their boats.
The immense Slavic forests had long since been cut down.
Indeed, Nordic forests sustained a lumber export industry — for centuries on end.
My siblings and I are the last of a long line of 100% Norwegians. It always irked my mother when I pointed out that, since the Vikings snatched women from most of the known world, we were more likely all genetic mongrels.
And that’s not all.
According to American TV, they were half black:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4520906/
I wonder which will be the new American TV Theory: black finish people? black french revolution? black italian renaissance?
Kiev is situated at the (most significant) Dnieper rapids. The Norsemen were paying off the locals to haul their boats up and over the rapids.
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I find it darkly amusing that the group that gave the Russians their name settled in a city that’s no longer part of Russia.
The Normans were also Vikings. The first Norman leader, Rollo (who’s apparently one of the leads in the TV series ‘Vikings’), was a Viking who was granted control of Normandy in exchange for promising to defend it. His descendent William took control of England after defeating Harold at the Battle of Hastings. But what is often not mentioned in the story of William and Harold is that Harold had just come from a battle against another invader and would-be claimant to the throne of England – Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway. And much of England itself was at least part-Viking. Depending on the specific year, the Danes alternated between ruling some, none, or all of England from the mid-800s clear up to just a little over a decade before the Battle of Hastings.
Uffdaphil said about Norwegian heritage, “We were more likely all genetic mongrels.” That works both ways! By the surnames and known origins of our ancestors, our family is almost completely Irish and English, with a small German fraction. Recently my sister had her DNA analyzed and lo and behold, the results included a goodly dash of Scandinavian genes. Those pillaging Vikings!
If that carved boat (or any boat, for that matter) from 800 AD was discovered in Africa, it would now be hailed as one of the Wonders of the World, the finest piece of craftsmanship and art ever created by man.
I remember at one time I had the impression that Vikings raided coastal towns and villages, but later learned that their raids penetrated deep within the European continent by navigation up the rivers. All in all, an impressive history.
While the Vikings may have traveled to distant lands in the ancient past, in more recent times, it took them many years and a lot of good fortune just to get past Green Bay.
The drakkar IS considered a masterpiece of ship design. It was the fastest ship in their time, with a design that made it capable of both sailing in open sea and in very shallow waters.
And by the way, basque whalers used a ship that is considered to be based in drakkar design: the txalupa. With them, basque whalers reached Newfoundland in the XIVth century. This is how a txalupa looks, you can notice the influence of drakkars.
http://a403.idata.over-blog.com/2/06/63/91/Brokoa-txalupa-handia.jpg
And the tradition has survived until today as a traditional sport based in the basque whalers, the “traineras”, whose roots go far it time to the design of viking drakkars more than one thousand years ago. There’s some beauty in that, isn’t it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7YdQaD-Ovg
Interesting article on Vikings and slavery at National Geographic: Kinder, Gentler Vikings? Not According to Their Slaves — excerpts:
Yann:
And that’s not all.According to American TV, they were half black..
That’s not the first time I heard that. When I was a teenager I heard it from a family friend who was a surrogate grandparent to me and my siblings. He told me he had read in Science magazine that Vikings had brought a lot of black slaves to Europe, and interbred with them. Unfortunately, he died not long after that conversation. As he was well-educated and a voracious reader, I tend to believe he had read that. He was an unforgettable character; a hometown friend and I recently communicated about him, decades after he died.
Gringo…
That legend has weak legs.
1) The Muslims routinely castrated their captured ( Black ) male victims.
There was no market for Black female slaves.
2) The Muslims greatly desired White women as sex slaves// wives — with particular emphasis on Slavic blondes and Irish redheads.
To obtain these beauties, the usual practice was to slay the rest of her family.
These sex raids were endless.
There is no rationale for the Norse to trade for Black slaves — when they were enslaving Whites — at manufacturer’s cost….
> seemed very intent on creating things of beauty
The celebration of ugliness seems unique to our time, but only in art. If the iphone had been ugly it would have been a bust. Indeed, I think Jobs had much to do with popularizing the idea that beauty was an essential part of a successful product. Well, Jobs and the Darwinian need to make sales.
If you had done the same in US, you would have far less problem nowadays.
Yann…
I suspect that the sole reason that the Arabs only wanted Black males is because it was practical to castrate them.
Whereas in ancient times no-one knew how to sterilize women.
As a hyper dominant ethos — the last thing that the Arab big man wanted was competing gene pools.
This racial distaste is still intense.
Qaddaffy imported millions of Blacks to Libya — as the locals were too lazy — in his mind — or too disloyal.
These mercs are NOT wanted back home in Nigeria.
So they dominate the ‘boat people’ coming across the Med.
They are a crime wave to beat all others. So Italy essentially locks them up in open air semi-prisons. This latter fact is but rarely broadcast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyCLVzL61_0
The fact that the Europeans are MUCH more inclined to accept Arabs than Blacks is not deemed news worthy.
@blert
The big problem with Arabs is called Islam. Non-Muslim Semitic people (like Jews) are quite close to Europeans. Not the same, but not such a big distance. Unfortunately, the big majority of Semitic people are Muslims.
Black people… well, ask South African people what they think after a two decades full immersive experience.
Yann…
The correct term is “vibrant.”
@blert
I think that “scalding” would be even a better one.
Please, do NOT mention Viking exploration, raiding , and settlement — after all, it took place in the Medieval Warm Period, which 97% of scientists believe could not POSSIBLY have happened because there was no burning of fossil fuels to create AGW. Destroys the narrative, don’t you know.
Vikings sailed down the Volga into the Caspian Sea a generation or two before they reached the Black Sea down the Dnepr. That was a combination no cataracts to surmount, and less vicious tribes than the Pecheneg along the Dnepr. At any rate, Muslim silver coins were flowing into Scandinavia by no later tan 800 A.D. In 860 A.D., a Viking fleet of 200 ships attacked Constantinople and ravaged its suburbs, and were subsequently bought off. Sometime between 864 and 883 A.D., Vikings attacked the port of Abaskos on the southeastern shores of the Caspian Sea in modern-day Iran, according to Persian records.
Of course, what they had to trade for Muslim silver was ivory, amber, furs, but most of all, slaves. That’s how the name of the Slavs became the word slave. Note: at that time, the Norse also sold into western European slave markets. Since the Slavs were pagan, it was okay to enslave them. An argument that was fiercely put forth right up into the 19th Century to justify the African slave trade (both into the Christian West, and into the Muslim north and east).