Swedes find Viking-era Arab coins
Swedish archaeologists have discovered a rare hoard of Viking-age silver Arab coins near Stockholm's Arlanda airport.
About 470 coins were found on 1 April at an early Iron Age burial site. They date from the 7th to 9th Century, when Viking traders travelled widely.
There has been no similar find in that part of Sweden since the 1880s.
Most of the coins were minted in Baghdad and Damascus, but some came from Persia and North Africa, said archaeologist Karin Beckman-Thoor. The team from the Swedish National Heritage Board had just started removing a stone cairn at the site "when we suddenly found one coin and couldn't understand why it was there", she told the BBC News website.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7330540.stm
they say vikings travelled widely. but islamic history says the muslim arabs reached the viking land before the vikings started their so-called world wide travel.
Long time since I've heard THAT mentioned on this 'ere site - if EVER! LOL
Very interesting article, though - archeology is fascinating - teaches us so much about the history of this Earth.
I think they have recently discovered how to see fossilised insects through the rocks without breaking the rocks down (which would destroy the fossils)
Amazing stuff!
What they say is that it is too early to tell how the coins came there but they have believed that the grave was prepared around year 850, which is 150 years before the Vikings started making Coins themselves.
The Swedish Vikings were mainly trading into Russia via the Rivers, but there are evidence of them very far and it is not a msytery if they have met Arabs and North Africa around in Europe.
Danish and Norwegian Vikings were more trading in Western and Southern Europe via the North Sea.
As far as I remember from Viking History there are no evidence that there have been Arabs in Scandinavia that Early in History.
LAter we know that North Africans were pillaging Villages as far as Iceland to take Slaves (thousands of European and Scandinavians were taken to marrocco as slaves )
"but islamic history says the muslim arabs reached the viking land before the vikings started their so-called world wide travel."
would be interested if you have any sources for this.
"The earliest reference by
Muslim writers to the roving Norsemen was made at the beginning of the
ninth century by Ibn Khurradadhbih"
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199906/among.the.norse.tribes-the.remarkable.account.of.ibn.fadlan.htm
It would seem they met and traded in Constantinople, Spain and the Black and Caspian Seas.
"Deaths in the Bible. God - 2,270,365
not including the victims of Noah's flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the
many plagues, famines, fiery serpents, etc because no specific numbers
were given. Satan - 10."