Vikings of the Steppe: Scandinavians, Rus', and the Turkic World (c. 750–1050)
This article approaches gender and power through the study of emotion as a means of refreshing and updating the study of Rūs gender using Arabic geographical sources. Considering Arabic geographical and historical sources on the Rūs that deal with the concept of funerary sacrifice, in particular those that posit the possibility of male as well as female sacrificial victims, I examine the conditions attached to the practice of sacrificing men in these sources. I do so primarily by focusing on the semantic usages of ḥubb (love) as it relates to the Rūs, exploring the potential for wider emotional exploration within geographical discussions of the Rūs and in the context of their use by researchers today.
This paper explores the image of the Viking in contemporary fiction and cinema, a critical element of the Scandinavian cultural imaginary. While the Viking image has its roots in historical events and saga literature, its representations have significantly evolved and been shaped by various social, cultural, and artistic influences. As a symbol of strength, adventure, and resilience, the Viking has been reinterpreted and commodified within multiple genres of literature and film, often to reflect and address contemporary socio-cultural realities. The study begins with a review of the Viking image in Scandinavian literature, tracing its transformation from the Edic poems and sagas to modern-day narratives. It then expands its focus to analyse the portrayal of Vikings in international cinema. By investigating how these portrayals diverge from or align with historical facts, this paper seeks to understand the dynamics between artistic liberty and creativity, historical authenticity, and the shaping of cultural identity. Special attention is given to the implications of these representations of Scandinavian identity and the broader global imaginary of the region. It proposes that diverse depictions of Vikings reveal much about the tensions and negotiations between the historical-cultural reality of Scandinavia and the perceptions, myths, and expectations of the audience and readership, who play a significant role in shaping these representations. The contrast between the Viking’s historical reality and its fictional portrayal illuminates the complexities of interpreting and exporting cultural symbols. The present paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the Scandinavian imaginary. It demonstrates how the region’s history, as symbolised by the Viking’s figures, continues to resonate within and shape its contemporary cultural and artistic landscapes.
This paper argues that weapons in Anglo-Saxon graves of the 5th - 7th centuries AD are not the reflection of a real-life 'warrior status', but the expression of a conquest or landnam myth comparable to the Ulster conquest myth of 'King Billy' or the Boer landnam myth of the Voortrekkers. The case illustrates the intentional nature of funerary data set out in more detail in the paper on 'The Nature of burial data' in the same volume.
The Scandinavian activity in Russia during the Viking Age has left traces in both the archaeological and the written material. In the 13th century Russian annals, "The Primary Chronicle", a story is told ofhow "Varangians from beyond the sea" founded the first Russian realm. The Varangians have been interpreted as Scandinavians, and the archaeological material has been connected with this story. This has resulted in a scientific debate, which in many cases has been steered by nationalistic feelings and political aims.
This book is the history of the Eastern Vikings, the Rus and the Varangians, from their earliest mentions in the narrative sources to the late medieval period, when the Eastern Vikings had become stock figures in Old Norse Romances. A comparison is made between sources emanating from different cultures, such as the Roman Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate and its successor states, the early kingdoms of the Rus and the high medieval Scandinavian kingdoms. A key element in the history of the Rus and the Varangians is the fashioning of identities and how different cultures define themselves in comparison and contrast with the other. This book offers a fresh and engaging view of these medieval sources, and a thorough reassessment of established historiographical grand narratives on Scandinavian peoples in the East.
It offers a good overview of a long period of cultural interaction and would serve well as set text in a university course.
Sverrir Jakobsson is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Iceland.
For thousands of years the Eurasian steppes have been a centre of human migrations and cultural change. Here we sequence the genomes of 137 ancient humans (about 1× average coverage), covering a period of 4,000 years, to understand the population history of the Eurasian steppes after the Bronze Age migrations. We find that the genetics of the Scythian groups that dominated the Eurasian steppes throughout the Iron Age were highly structured, with diverse origins comprising Late Bronze Age herders, European farmers and southern Siberian hunter-gatherers. Later, Scythians admixed with the eastern steppe nomads who formed the Xiongnu confederations, and moved westward in about the second or third century bc, forming the Hun traditions in the fourth–fifth century ad, and carrying with them plague that was basal to the Justinian plague. These nomads were further admixed with East Asian groups during several short- term khanates in the Medieval period. These historical events transformed the Eurasian steppes from being inhabited by Indo-European speakers of largely West Eurasian ancestry to the mostly Turkic-speaking groups of the present day, who are primarily of East Asian ancestry.
During the 1 st millennium before the Common Era (BCE), nomadic tribes associated with the Iron Age Scythian culture spread over the Eurasian Steppe, covering a territory of more than 3,500 km in breadth. To understand the demographic processes behind the spread of the Scythian culture, we analysed genomic data from eight individuals and a mitochondrial dataset of 96 individuals originating in eastern and western parts of the Eurasian Steppe. Genomic inference reveals that Scythians in the east and the west of the steppe zone can best be described as a mixture of Yamnaya-related ancestry and an East Asian component. Demographic modelling suggests independent origins for eastern and western groups with ongoing gene-flow between them, plausibly explaining the striking uniformity of their material culture. We also find evidence that significant gene-flow from east to west Eurasia must have occurred early during the Iron Age.
A novgorodi Szent Szófia székesegyház korai feliratai között egy Ugrin nevű személy nevével találkozhatunk. Noha e személy közelebbi kiléte ismeretlen (minden bizonnyal egy magyarról van szó), ennek kapcsán röviden áttekintésre kerül a Rusz, és különösen Novgorod magyarokra és az Urál vidékére vonatkozó „táj- és népszemlélete”, óhatatlanul is visszakanyarodva a mégiscsak létező Jugria-problémához.
The fourth volume of this landmark series features a special focus on headdress, with papers analysing women's turbans in fifteenth-century French manuscript paintings; the changing meaning of the term cuff; the spread of wimple from England to Southern Italy; and a surviving embroidered linen cap attributed to Saint Birgitta of Sweden. Northern European dress and textiles are further explored in papers on archaeological textiles from medieval towns in Finland, Norway, and Sweden; the construction of gowns excavated at Herjolfsnes, Greenland; and references to scarlet clothing in Icelandic sagas. Other papers focus on linen production in medieval Russia and an enigmatic quilt of Henry VIII's that almost certainly arrived in England as part of the dowry of Catherine of Aragon. Also included are reviews of recent books on clothing and textiles.
The Swedish and Norwegian Vikings were present in the Balkans including in Bulgaria. The archaeological and visual materials found on the Romanian, Bulgarian and Turkish territory support this statement. The majority of the objects constitute parts of weapons and tools related to the Scandinavian warfare. Most of these artifacts were discovered in North East of Bulgaria close to the Romanian border. They can be attributed to the Rus princes (father and son): Igor I (912–945) and Svyatoslav I Igorevich (942–972) who passed by the Bulgarian lands in the 10-th century and the Norwegian prince Harald who supported the Byzantine Empire to cause the downfall of the First Bulgarian kingdom at the beginning of the next century. Despite this sorrowful reputation, though, the Viking material culture in Bulgaria, Romania and Istanbul gives evidence to the multicultural mosaic of our region. It also enriches the Balkan history and culture. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to outline the Viking objects discovered in the Balkans.
A Jászberény melletti homokbánya kitermelése közben egy 10. század eleji magyar temetőt semmisítettek meg. A megmentett leletek több sírból származnak, a „B” sírból embercsontok és lócsontok is megmaradtak. A megmaradt tárgyak közül a legfontosabb egy aranyozott ezüstlemezből készült süvegcsúcs, amelynek felületét hálóba szerkesztett palmettás díszítés fedi. A tanulmány következtetése, hogy a magyar és normann süvegcsúcsok Kelet-Európában alakulhattak ki a 9. század végén. A két magyarországi példány a magyar honfoglalás utáni években készülhetett.
Ibn Faḍlān's account of the caliphal embassy from Baghdad to the King of the Volga Bulghārs in the early fourth/tenth century is one of our principal, textual sources for the history, ethnogenesis and polity formation of a number of tribes and peoples who populated Inner Asia. Of especial significance is his description of a people whom he calls the Rūsiyyah. Attempts to identify this people have been the stuff of controversy for almost two centuries and have largely focused on how this description can be made to contribute to the Normanist Controversy (the principal, but by no means the only, controversy concerns the extent of Viking involvement in the creation of Russia). This article provides a fresh, annotated translation of Ibn Faḍlān's passage and considers a multiplicity of identities for the Rūsiyyah.
The role of archeology in solving issues of Khazar history is evident. Khazar cultural heritage in Eastern Europe should be discussed through reliance on archaeological material of reliably established Khazar cultural attribution. While searching for such material one sometimes is faced with curious cases far from science, as well as scientific guesswork. Such free interpretations of the archaeological sources, ignoring known methodical procedures and attributing Saltovo archaeological culture and its variants too loosely has resulted in discrediting the very existence of Khazar cultural heritage in Eastern Europe. This particularly relates to the attribution of certain tribal entities to the Khazars. Khazar antiquities do exist in South Russia, but they are not represented by Saltovo culture in any strict classical meaning of the term. The territory of the Khazar domain may be archeologically marked by meticulous analysis and historical interpretation of three categories of archeological sources dated from the second half of the 8 th - first half of the 10 th centuries: 1) spatial distribution of fortresses of the Byzantine type that guarded the Khazar borders; 2) three directions of migrations marked by catacomb burial rites of Alan tribes settled along the Khazar frontier for its protection; 3) geographical spread of burial sites displaying kurgan burials encircled with square-shaped ditches - the monuments left by the Khazar tribes proper.
Throughout their entire history, the sedentary civilizations of China and Europe had to deal with nomads and barbarians. This unique volume explores their drastically different responses: China 'chose' containment while Europe 'chose' expansion. Migration played a crucial role in this interaction. Issuing from two population centers, the sedentary one in the West and the nomadic one in the East, two powerful population streams confronted each other in the Eurasian Steppe. This confrontation was a crucial factor in determining patterns of Eurasian history - it destroyed existing states, created new ones, and drastically changed the balance of power. Even today, while Russian populations in Asia contract, the population pressures in China and Central Asia continue to build and are likely to spill over across the border. This book shows how we are witnessing the beginning of a new cycle of the age-old contest.
This volume, which continues the same author's Early Byzantine Historians , is the first book to analyze the lives and works of all forty-three significant Byzantine historians from the seventh to the thirteenth century, including the authors of three of the world's greatest histories: Michael Psellus, Princess Anna Comnena, and Nicetas Choniates.
The role of the English mercenaries in the Byzantine army has long been under dispute. A. A. Vasiliev, writing in 1937, gave a very full summary of what was known at that time, and tended to stress their importance to Byzantium in the later eleventh century. However, his article came under brief but formidable attack from the German scholar, F. Dölger, who published a review of Vasiliev's work in 1938. A year later, Dölger's arguments were repeated and amplified by S. Blöndal. Since then, the dispute has hung fire, and a recent historian of the Byzantine army, A. Hohlweg, was justified when, in 1965, he wrote of the problem of the role of the English as umstritten — disputed. What follows is an attempt to reassess the problem and my conclusion is akin to Vasiliev's: there was a significant migration of Anglo-Saxons to the Byzantine Empire around 1080, and in the early years of Alexius Comnenus‘ reign. Further, there is evidence of diplomatic contact between the Empire and the rulers of England, and groups of Anglo-Saxons may have continued to migrate eastward later than has previously been thought. But the value of the English was probably greatest in the early years of Alexius Comnenus’ reign, and may even be compared with that of the Russians who had come to the rescue of the emperor Basil II nearly a hundred years earlier, in about 988.