BIRKA AND SCANDINAVIA'S TRADE WITH THE EAST

Author(s): BJÖRN AMBROSIANI and Phyllis Anderson Ambrosiani

Source: Russian History, Vol. 32, No. 3/4 (Fall Winter 2005), pp. 287-296
Published by: Brill
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/24663264
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 Russian History/Histoire Russe, 32, Nos. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 2005), 287-96.

ARTICLES

BJORN AMBROSIANI (Stockholm, Sweden)

BIRKA AND SCANDINA VIA'S TRADE WITH THE EAST

Introduction
Through the years, Thomas Noonan's profound analyses of Viking-age
coinage found in Russia and the Baltic area have come to be of significant im
portance in increasing understanding of Scandinavia's connections with the
East. Without his work, a reliable factual basis would hardly have been possi
ble to achieve. By and large, Thomas Noonan's hypotheses imply that, already
at an early date, the Russian area should have been the mediator of Islamic o
jects, primarily Islamic silver, to Western Europe.1 Through this, he links to
tradition whose roots reach deeply into twentieth-century research, originating
in the work of Henri Pirenne2 and Sture Bolin3 on European trade in the early
Carolingian Period.
However, the chronological setting of these Eastern contacts seems to have
shifted from Bolin's clear date of the early access to the northern route at th
end of the ninth century, to a general archaeological and numismatic view
suggesting that all of the material coming from the East after the mid or lat
eighth century had travelled along the Russian route.4
In the following discussion, I will question some aspects of this view on
the basis of current analyses of the finds and stratigraphy at Birka, presentin
new evidence regarding these connections. In this discussion, some of the
most recent research results of several members of the Birka Project will be
summarized. I would like to thank them warmly for the work they have car
ried out on their respective materials.

1. Th. S. Noonan, "The Vikings in the East: Coins and Commerce," Vie Twelfth Viking Con
gress, ed. by B. Ambrosiani and H. Clarke. Birka Studies, 3 (Stockholm: Birka Project, 1994
215-36.
2. H. Pirenne, Mahomet et Charlemagne (Paris-Bruxelles: Feiix Alcan, 1970).
3. S. Bolin, "Muhammed, Karl den store och Rurik," Scandia, 12 (1939): 181-222; S. Bolin,
"Mohammed, Charlemagne and Ruric " Scandinavian Economic History Review, 1 (1953): 15
39.

4. B. Ambrosiani, "Osten und Westen im Ostseehandel zur Wikingerzeit," Haithabu und die
friihe Stadtentwicklung im nordlichen Europa, hrsg. von K. Brandt, M. Miiller-Wille und Chr.
Radtke [Schriften des ArchSologischen Landesmuseums 8] (Neumflnster: Wachholtz, 2002),
339-48; B. Ambrosiani, "East and West in the Viktng Age Trade in the Baltic Region - a Birka
Perspective," Birka Studies, 9 (forthcoming).

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288
Russian History/Histoire Russe

Background
the point of departure for this discussion is founded in the results of the
comprehensive excavations in Birka's Black Earth between 1990-1995. The
stratigraphically well-defined material from these excavations shows that an
important shift in contacts took place at the end of the 800s. Prior to this time,
essentially all of the imported material found at Birka originated from western
and southern sources, from Dorestad at the mouth of the Rhine River and from
Wolin at the mouth of the Oder River, both important marketplaces on the
European continent. At the end of the 800s, these objects disappeared alto
gether, being replaced by Eastern Islamic and Russian objects. The only ex
ception to this in the material ftoro the early period are the finds of a couple of
Arabic coins and a number of glass beads, both of which are types that are as
sumed to have originated from Syria or other comparable areas in the Middle
East.
The circumstances of Birka's local production are very surprising. In his
study of the bone material from the culture layers of the Black Earth, Bengt
Wigh, the project's osteologist, has identified large quantities of paw bones
from fox, pine marten, and squirrel, all characteristic fur-bearing animals.
Birka's inhabitants obviously have converted dried skins, from animals hunted
in the forest zones surrounding the Baltic Sea and the Bay of Bothnia, to fin
ished furs. First after this was completed the paws, still attached to these fins,
were cut off and discarded along with other waste from the marketplace/early
town. Fur-bearing animals constitute a large part of the bones from these ex
cavations. Approximately 16 percent appears in the earliest layers, dating from
the mid eighth century AD, and from the end of the eighth century this amount
decreases in size to no more than 3 percent by the end of the ninth century,5
remaining at this low level during the tenth century. From this it is clear that,
already from the time of its early establishment, trade in furs was an important
part of Birka's economy.
In a parallel way, through Olga Davidan's research on early finds from the
oldest stratigraphic layers (E3-E1) at Staraia Ladoga, it is possible to establish
the presence:of Scandinavians, and contacts between Scandinavia and Staraia
Ladoga up to the mid or late ninth century.6 Also at Staraia Ladoga, finds of
Eastern objects as well as Islamic coinage were insignificant in its early exis
tence.

Contacts between Ladoga and Birka existed throughout this period, mir
rored in the appearance of Ladoga pottery in the oldest stratigraphic layers at
Birka.7 Moreover, the ninth-century finds from Gorodishche at Novgorod are

5. В. Wigh, Animal Husbandry in the Viking Age Town of Birka and its Hinterland, ibid., 7
(Stockholm: The Birka Project, 2001), 121 and diagram fig. 78.
6. 0. I. Davidan, "Kunsthandwerkliche Gegenstande des 8. bis 10. Jahrhundetts aus Alt-La
doga (Die Sammlung der Staatlichen Ermitage in St. Petersburg)," Zeitschrift fiir Archiiologie
des Mittelalters, 20 (1992): 10.
7. Matthias Back (forthcoming).

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Birka and Scandinavia's Trade with the East 289

primarily Scandinavian.8 Therefore, one may seriously question whether con

tacts between the Baltic Sea area and the Khazars and Arabs, passing through
the Russian area, were possible or even existed at this early stage.
Many of the early Islamic hoards found in the area east of the Dnepr river
and south of the Volga river appear to have arrived there by travel that fol
lowed the routes across the Caucasus to: the southeastern part of Russia, at that
time under the control of the Khazars.9 Some of these hoards10 have early, pre
800 AD, /рд-dates, although the majority of them can be attributed to a later
period. However, the tenth century hoards also contain, as do the Birka graves,
many early coins as .well as coins and objects which can be attributed to the
tenth century. - .■·■■> -■ ·· -
Exceptionally few early hoards are found in the zone between these two
rivers and the Baltic Sea. One such find, however, includes the early dirhams
from Staraia Ladoga, which were well defined stratigraphically." This deposi
tion, together with the two dirhams from the early stratigraphic layers at
Birka,12 must date from the early part of the ninth century or perhaps even the
late eighth century.
On this basis, a preliminary conclusion is that the so-called "northern
route" between the Franks and Arabs, passing through Scandinavia and Rus
sia, obviously never has existed, as such. On the contrary, the underlying in
tention from the perspectives of both of these areas, respectively, has been to
obtain one or a variety of important raw wares from Northern Europe as, for
example, furs, walrus tusks, amber, and slaves. The North European taiga
zone has functioned as a source of raw materials in itself, and not primarily as

8. Ε. Ν. Nosov, "Ryurik Gorodishche and the settlements to the north of Lake Ilmen," in The
Archaeology of Novgorod, Russia, ed. by M. Brisbane [The Society for Medieval Archaeology,
Monograph series: Ns 13] (Lincoln, NE: Socicty for Medieval Archaeology, 1992), 5-66; Ε. N.
Nosov, "Ein Herrechaftsgebiet entsteht. Die Vorgeschichte der n6rdlichen Rus' und Novgorods,"
in Novgorod. Das mittelalterliche Zentrum und sein Umland im Norden Russlands, M. Milller
Wille, V. L. Janin, Ε. N. Nosov & E. A. Rybina, eds. [Studien zur Siedlungsgeschichte und
Archaologie der Ostseegebiete 1] (Neumiinster: Wachholtz, 2001), 13-74.
9. T. S. Noonan, "Nintli-Century Dirham Hoards from European Russia: A Preliminary
Analysis," in M.A.S. Blackburn and D. M. Metcalf, eds., Viking-Age Coinage in the Northern
Lands: The Sixth Oxford Symposium on Coinage and Monetary History [British Archaeological
Reports, International Series 122] (Oxford: B.A.R., 1981), 47-117 [reprinted in The Islamic
World, Russia and the Vikings, 750-900. Variorum Collected Studies Series. Ashgate (Aldershot,
UK, and Brookfield, VT: Ashgate Variorum, 1998)]; T. S. Noonan, "Why Dirhams First
Reached Russia: The Role of Arab-Khazar Relations in the Development of the Earliest Islamic
Trade with Western Europe," Archivum Eurasieae Medii Aevi, 4 (1984), 151-282 [reprinted in
The Islamic World].
10. Noonan, "Ninth-Century Dirham Hoards from European Russia," 58ff; 1986/1998,119ff.
11. T. S. Noonan, "Why the Vikings First Came to Russia," Jahrbiicher fur Geschichte Ost
europas, 34 (1986): 321-48 [reprinted in The Islamic World],
12. Ingrid Gustin, "The Coins and Weights from the Excavations 1990-1995. Introduction
and Presentation of the Material," Eastern Connections Part Two: Numismatics and Metrology,
Birka Studies, 6 (Stockholm: The Birka Project, 2004), 11-25.

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290 Russian History/Histoire Russe

a route trafficked by merchants and goods between the East and West. This
view is also implied by Noonan.13
This situation is mirrored also through the colonization of the Iaroslavl'
area at the Volga River in the late ninth century, which probably involved the
Svear from eastern Scandinavia, and the part of their population living in Ro
slagen and on the Aland Islands. Large cemeteries, rich in objects of Scandi
navian form and whose grave tradition has blended with the Finnish and Sla
vonic groups are found at Timerevo and at Mikhailovskoe, among other
places. The jewellery forms, mainly the double-shell oval brooches of type
P51, suggest that these cemeteries cannot have been established earlier than
immediately prior to 900.14 The particular contact between the Aland Islands
and the Iaroslavl' area is mirrored in the abundance of clay paws, that is, de
pictions of bear and beaver paws in clay, that appear in the finds from these
cemeteries. In the Scandinavian area, clay paws of this kind are found mainly
in connection with Alandic cemeteries.15 Similarly, the Scandinavian chronol
ogy at Gnezdovo near Smolensk on the Dnepr River does not begin beford the
16
end of the ninth century or at about 900.
The archaeotogical evidence supports information given in the Primary or
Nestor's Chronicle, suggesting that in c. 900 AD Riurik and his successors
had expanded their area of control toward the south and east, among other
things in this way, taking over the Khazar taxation area.17
The Scandinavian settlement along the Volga is also the context of Ibn
Fadlan's description of the burial of a Nordic merchant at Bulghar, at the junc
tion between the Kama and Volga Rivers in the early 920s. At this time the
trade route to the East was fully established. The question here is how Ibn
Khurdadbeh's account of Scandinavian "ar-Rus" merchants in Baghdad from
the mid-800s should be understood, and the contents of Greek Chronicles con
cerning a Rus' assault on Constantinople in the 860s. Are these indications of
the earliest attempts to establish the direct route between the Scandinavians
and the Arabs and the Greeks, which perhaps was not realized fully until con
siderably later?
In addition, there are also the accounts of the "Rhos" who, reported as not
being able to return home through Russia, asked permission in 839 to travel

13. Noonan, "The Vikings in the East: Coins and Commerce," 215-36.
14. V. V. MuraSeva, "The Viking Age Monuments in the Jaroslavl' region on the Upper Vol
ga," in TheRural Viking in Russia and Sweden, ed. by P. Hansson (Orebro: Orebro kommuns
bildningsffirvaltning, 1997), 76.
15. J. Callmer, 'The Clay Paw Burial Rite of the Aland Islands and Central. Russia: A Sym
bol in Action," Current Swedish Archaeology, 2 (1994): 13-46; I. Jansson, "Warfare, Trade or
Colonisation? Some general remarks on the Eastern expansion of the Scandinavians in the Vik
ing Period," in The Rural Viking in Russia and Sweden, ed. by P. Hansson, 44.
16. Jansson, "Warfare, Trade or Colonisation?," 48.
17. For the years 883-885, see The Russian Primary Chronicle Luarentian Text, Samuel Haz
zard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, trans, and eds. (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Acade
my of America, 1952), 61.

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Birka and Standinavia's Trade with the East 291

home to Sweden through the Carolingian kingdom.18 This may show the diffi
culties in trying to attribute the Russian river route to such an early date.

Weight systems and silver

Generally, the silver hoards from the Baltic area and, above all, Gotland are
an important source of information about Viking-age economy. At the same
time, although the majority of this silver appears as coinage or coin fragments,
it may be established that these are not primarily evidence of a monetary
economy but of an economy based instead on weighing silver. This is clearly
different from the contemporary West European economy that, already much
earlier, had converted to a coin-bjised economy.19
The weight systems of that time correspond generally to the Arabic Islamic
weight system, although there is a difference between the pure Islamic and a
locally adjusted "Birka weight," respectively.20 The apparently precisely con
structed weight units are mirrored in the particular types of bronze and bronze
and iron weights, respectively, which are characteristic for the Viking Age,
but which were still in use at the beginning of the Scandinavian Medieval Pe
riod prior to the adaptation of a coin-based economy.21
It has traditionally been understood that both of these types of weights, the
cubo-octahedral and the spherical with flat poles of iron-covered bronze, were
modelled on Arabic prototypes.22 Ingrid Gustin shows, however, that it is
doubtful that these imagined physical prototypes actually existed in the Is
lamic lands. The spherical forms have been produced partly in the workshops
at Birka and in the mint at Sigtuna,23 while the prototypes of the cubo
octahedral forms seem to originate from the Baltic and Permian areas.24
In the Black Earth excavations, the cubo-octahedral weights appear only in
phase 6 and later phases, while the spherical weights do not appear prior to

IB. Royal Frankish Annals R444; M. McCormick, Origins of the European Economy. Com
munications and Commerce. A.D. 300-900 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001), 918.
19. H. Steuer, W. B. Stern, and B. Goldenberg, "Der Wcchsel von der Miinzgeld- zur Ge
wichtsgeldwirtschaft in Haithabu um 900 und die Herkunft des MUnzsilbcrs im 9. und 10. Jahr
hundert," in Haithabu und die friihe Stadtentwicklung, 133-67.
20. E. Sperber, Balances, Weights and Weighing in Ancient and Early Medieval Sweden
[Theses and Papers in Scientific Archaelogy 2] (Stockholm, 1996); Erik Sperber, "Metrology of
the Weights from the Birka Excavations 1990-1995," Eastern Connection Part Two: Numisma-,
tics and Metrology, Birka Studies, 8 (Stockholm: The Birka Project, 2004), 61-95; Gustin, "The
Coins and Weights from the Excavations 1990-1995," 11-25.
21. H. Steuer, "Waagen und Gewichte aus dem mittelalterlichen Schleswig. Funde des 11. bis
13. Jahrhunderts aus Europa als Quellen zur Handels- und Wahrungsgeschichte," Zeitschrifl fir
Archaologie des Mittelalters [Beiheft 10] (1997); Steuer et al., "Der Wechsel von der Miinz
geld- zur Gewichtsgeldwirtschaft," 133-67.
22. Gustin, "The Coins and Weights from the Excavations 1990-1995," 11-25.
23. A. Soderberg, Schmelzkugeln: Identifikation av en hantverksprocess. Fyndmaterialet /ran
Birka och Sigtuna. CD-uppsatser i laborativ arkeologi 95/96, 2 (Stockholm: Arkeologiska fors
kningslaboratoriet, 1996).
24. Gustin (in preparation).

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292 Russian History/Histoire Russe

phase 7. In this stratigraphy, phase 6 corresponds to the second half of the

800s, and phase 7 corresponds to the beginning of the 900s. Their different
chronology implies that these two forms have not arrived simultaneously and,
therefore, at least the cubo-octahedral forms should belong to the break
through in trade with the East. The spherical weights represent the subsequent
period during which time the trade route had become fully established. Thus,
the form and appearance of these weights correspond very well with the ex
pansion of the area of Scandinavian influence alotig the Russian rivers to the
East.
The amounts of known tenth-century silver are astonishing. The many
10,000s of Arabic dirhams, mainly unearthed on the Baltic Sea island of Got
land, but which appear in considerably lesser quantity also on the Scandina
vian mainland, the southern coast of the Baltic Sea and the Russian area,15
show that the export of raw wares from the Baltic Sea area and the taiga zone
was comprehensive. Perhaps already at this time the Godandic merchants
functioned as mediators between the Scandinavian area of origin and the
Khazarian and Arabic area of destination.
In this way, these raw wares have formed the precondition for the influx of
large quantities of silver, which should be seen not as an expression of a par
ticular desire by the northern populations to procure silver, but as the result of
this trade. H. Steuer has shown that the Eastern silver has remained in ,the
North European area, not being transited farther West to any great degree.26
The traditional assumption has been that these hoards consisted of silver,
hidden during times of trouble in the Baltic Sea area, which were never re
trieved. Ostergren's analysis of the sites of the Gotlandic hoards showed that
they often lay buried in pits dug into the ground beneath the foundations of
Viking-age houses, making them personal silver stores of the farms.27 This
considerable silver surplus does not appear to have been useable, despite the
transformation of much of it to silver arm rings commonly weighing one half
(100-110 g) or one whole (c. 210 g) mark. Considerable numbers of such arm
rings and other comparable objects were stored together with Arabic coins in
these farm hbards.
Somewhat surprising is the relationship between the amounts of silver and
gold finds, respectively. Because gold objects and gold coinage are very un
usual in the Baltic Sea area, above all, it has been assumed that gold was not
included as a part of this stream of payment. At the same time it should be re
membered that Ibn Fadlan records that, upon their arrival in Bulghar, Nordic
merchants made a sacrificial offering to ensure good payment, in both gold
and in silver. It also appears that the northern merchants were well supplied

25. Noonan, "The Vikings in the East: Coins and Commerce," 227.
26. Steuer et al., "Der Wechsel von der Miinzgeld- zur Gewichtsgeldwirtschaft," 147ff
27. M. Ostergren, Mellan stengrund och stenhus. Theses and Papers in Archaeology, 2
(Stockholm: Institute of Archaeology at the Univ. of Stockholm, 1989), 65.

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Birka and Scandinavia's Trade with the East 293

with gold when buying silks in Byzantium.28 It is very probable that payment
was carried out mainly in gold, while silver played a somewhat different role
in these transactions.
Arabic gold coins, dinars, appear in large numbers following a path that
stretched across Central Europe along the Danube and Rhine Rivers.29 The
northernmost of these coins appear in the hoard found, at Hon in southern
Norway. These coins were struck originally in Damascus at an early date, but
later also in other places. They were copied by King Offa in English Mercia,
for example, and to a certain degree they also were produced as gilded copper
counterfeits.30 Many gold dinars were deposited in early hoards buried in the
earth already in the 800s.
In Western Europe, the distribution of gold dinars and their chronology
show that they hardly can have passed through Russia. This is probably one of
several important arguments explaining why, during the greater part of the
ninth century, trade between the East and West still moved through the Medi
terranean area, and why Islamic coins were used as valid coinage in Christian
Frankish as well as English areas.
This is probably also the case for many of the early silver dirhams. Even
the stratigraphically early coins of this kind from the Nordic area, from Kau
pang, Birka, and Staraia Ladoga, for example, witness to the strong ties be
tween the source of raw wares in Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea area and their
place of destination in Western Europe, in Dorestad, and possibly also in
Wolin. Also at these locations, a surplus of Islamic coins seems to have ex
isted, which partly may have been used for purchasing Baltic and Nordic raw
wares.

The taiga zone - a resource area for furs

A band of coniferous forests, the taiga, stretches from the Atlantic coast
towards the east across northern Sweden, Finland and Russia. On the Scand
navian peninsula, the Fenni or Screrefennae, known today as the Saami, popu
lated this area, living according to Tacitus and Jordanes on hunting and fish
ing.3 1 The Screrefennae were said to live just beyond the limits of the Svear
whose area of settlement included the ancient agricultural area around Lake
Malaren that, with some few exceptions, did not stretch farther north. Well
into historical times, the eastern parts of this ancient forested area were pop
lated by various Finno-Ugrian tribes. Also in this area, hunting and fishing
have been the main means of livelihood while cultivation has remained rathe
undeveloped.

28. The Russian Primary Chronicle, 68.

29. McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 344ff, and Appendix 3, 8151T.
30. Rispling (forthcoming).
31. Tacitus, The Agricola and the Germania, trans, by H. Mattingly, revised by S. A. Hand
ford (London: Penguin Books, 1970), ch. 46; Jordanes, Gelica. От goternas ursprung och bed
rifter, trans, to Swedish by A. Nordin. Atlantis (Stockholm: Atlantis, 1997), ch. 21.

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294 Russian History/Histoire Russe

Internal contacts between all parts of the taiga zone, and partly also exter
nal contacts between these and the developed cultures of the Mediterranean
and Black Sea areas, existed early in the Iron Age. The forest zone was a
source for a number of valuable raw wares such as furs and amber, supple
mented by walrus tusks transported from the Arctic Sea areas, and slaves, all
desirable commodities in the areas to the south. The demand for these proba
bly increased when the first royal realms in the West were established in the
middle of the first millennium AD after the Migration Period. The surplus of
magnificent objects from the Merovingian Period in the northern part of the
Baltic Sea area may mirror a phase of this trade with areas of Central and
Western Europe. Not least the regional distributions of different objects are
evidence that suggest the existence of several trade routes, joining the differ
ent settled areas of Scandinavia with various powerful groups on the Conti
nent. There appear to be considerable differences, for example, between 1
Vendel, Valsgarde, and Helgo in eastern Sweden32 and the settled areas of
Finland33 where weapon and jewellery forms are very different, obviously lo
cally produced or, perhaps more probably, suggesting the existence of inde
pendent lines of contact with respective Germanic kingdoms on the Continent.
The comprehensive establishment of marketplaces in the Baltic Sea area in
the eighth century34 is in all probability linked to the need for organizing the
fur trade. The large amounts of bone from fur-bearing animals that appear in
the oldest stratigraphic layers at Birka, dating to the eighth century,35 is impor-.
tant evidence of this situation. Extensive contacts with the Carolingian king
dom during Birka's earliest period of existence are also miiTored in its grave
goods.36 This is also probably the case for Staraia Ladoga in Russia, where
contacts with Scandinavia were particularly strong in its emerging phase at c.
750-850 AD.37
An important question is whether this time of prosperity was disturbed in
the later part of the ninth century when, above all, the Carolingian kingdom
suffered great difficulties and the main port of Dorestad obviously disappeared

32. Hj. Stolpe, Т. J. Ame, CraffSltet vid Vendel (Stockholm: KVHAA Monografier, 1912);
G. Arwidsson, 1942a. Vendelstile, Email und Glas im 7.-8. Jahrhundert. Diss. AMAS 2, Vals
garde-Studien 1 (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells boktryckeri, 1942); G. Arwidsson, Valsgarde 6.
AMAS 1, Die Graberfunde von Valsgarde I (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells boktryckeri, 1942);
G. Arwidsson, Valsgarde 7. AMAS V, Die GrSber von Valsgarde III (Uppsala: Almqvist &
Wiksells boktryckeri, 1977); W. Holmqvist, A. Lundstr6m, H. Clarke, et al., eds., Excavations at
Helgo, Ι-ΧΓν (Stockholm: KVHAA monografier, 1961-2001).
33. E. Kivikoski, Die Eisenzeit Finnlands (Helsinki: Neuausgabe, 1973); T. Edgren, Den fir
historiska tiden. Finlands'Historia, 1,9-270. Schildts (Esbo: Schildts, 1992), 202ff.
34. H. Clarke, B. Ambrosiani, Towns in the Viking Age (Leicester: Leicester Univ. Press,
1991), 46-89 and 107-20.
35. Wigh, Animal Husbandry in the Viking Age Town ofBirka, 121.
36. H. Arbman, Schweden und das Karolingische Reich. Studien zu den Handelsverbindun
gen des 9. Jarhrhunderts, KVHAA Handlingar 43 (Stockholm: Wahlstrom & Widstrand, 1937).
37. Davidan, "Kunsthandwerkliche Gegenstande des 8. bis 10. Jahrhunderts aus Alt-Ladoga."

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Birka and Scandinavia's Trade with the Hast 295

from the шар. Possibly, also, some of the areas around the Bay of Bothnia had
become over-exploited, which may be one reason for the sharp decline in in
coming material from Scandinavia and the Continent to Osterbotten at that
time.38

What perhaps is seen in the eastern Swedish establishment in Russia, pri

marily at the Volga and Dnepr Rivers at the end of the ninth century, could be
a refocus in attention toward more eastern parts of the taiga zone, in conjunc
tion with a contemporary establishment of new trade routes to an already im
portant destination, the expanding Arabic Islamic world toward the east, an
area with which earlier contacts had been established through the Frankish
Empire and crossing the Mediterranean airea.*
The combination of different grave traditions and rich complexes of grave
goods from the cemetery at Timerevo,39 for example, show that the popula
tions there had originated from many different places and that their economy
was rather good. It is hard to imagine that this situation could have been
achieved by a society whose livelihood was exclusively based on farming,
however successful. On the other hand, some of these places certainly should
have been capable of functioning as bases of livelihood for extensive trapping
activity in the forest areas farther north, which is also stressed by J. Callmer.40
There, the risk of over-exploitation does not seem to have existed.
Above all, an establishment near the Volga also created good conditions
for following the river eastward toward Bulghar and to the land of the
Khazars. Regardless of whether the route to the Arabs has followed the Volga
to the Caspian Sea or directly crossed the steppes from Bulghar to the Aral
Sea, the route is simpler and faster than the circuitous route across the Baltic
Sea and Western Europe. The pattern we understand as most important for the
Viking-age trade contacts with Islam could be established without the neces
sity of too many middlemen.

Conclusion

From this, it is clear that research must re-evaluate Bolin's suggestion of

the late establishment of the traffic between Scandinavia and the Arabs along
the Russian rivers. Finds from Birka and Staraia Ladoga show that these
towns, up until the last phases of the ninth century, had been in contact only
with Western Europe. A change in the directions of contact has taken place af

38. Cf. the latest in K. Viklund, "Osterbottens jarn&ldersbygd och kontinuitetsproblemati

ken," Fran romartid till vikingatid, Studier i Osterbottens ftrhistoria (Vasa: Scriptum, 2002), 5,
25^4.

39. Jansson, "Warfare, Trade or Colonisation?," 37ff; MurasSva, "The Viking Age Mon
ments in the Jaroslavl' region" and Tamara Puskina, "Scandinavian finds from old Russia.
survey of their topography and chronology," in The Rural Viking in Russia and Sweden, ed. b
P. Hansson, 83-91.
40. Callmer, "The Clay Paw Burial Rite," 13-46.

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296 Russian History/Histoire Russe

ter that time, and it is something that has coincided with the establishment of a
Scandinavian population in different places in central and northern Russia.
From a macro-economic perspective, the surge in economic and cultural
development simultaneously seems to have been refocused from Western
Europe to the Middle East. And it was in the competition for important raw
wares as furs, which was decisive in the establishment of the trade routes.
Payment was carried out in gold as well as in silver, although the greatest
practical benefit probably came from the gold that was exchanged for the im
portant wares destined for Northern Europe. The surplus silver could not be
used and it has remained, therefore, buried under the floor of the houses of the
Gotlandic farms.

Translated by Phyllis Anderson Ambrosiani

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