An ancient ring has shed new light on the ties between Vikings and the Islamic world, more than a century after its discovery.
The finger ring found in a 9th century Swedish grave is inscribed with Arabic Kufic writing. The letters appear to read "AL_LLH, researchers say, which they interpret as meaning "for/to (of) Allah."
The ring is part of the Swedish History Museum's collection, originally cataloged as being made of gilded silver and violet amethyst, bearing the inscription "Allah."
Researchers led by Stockholm University biophysicist Sebastian Wärmländer say they used "scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) to analyze the ring's composition and found that it was in fact made of silver alloy and the "amethyst" was colored glass.
"For the stone, we must remember that even though colored glass might today be perceived as a 'fake' material of lower value, this was not necessarily so in the past," the team cautioned. "Even though glass production began around 5,000 years ago in the Levant it was still an exotic material in Viking Age Scandinavia."
More significantly, the researchers found no trace of the gold that had been assumed to coat the ring and noted the presence of filing marks.
"Together with the absence of gold on the metal surface … the file marks clearly show that the previous description of the ring as gilded was mistaken: if the surface had been gilt and the gold layer had worn away, also the file markings would be gone. But the metal surface displays no wear, and as the original file marks are still in place, this ring has never been much used."
The team, therefore, believes the ring was passed from an Arabic silversmith to the woman, with few or any other owners in between. "We now believe that it was very common for Viking women to take Asian or African husbands" researchers said.
While travel between the Islamic caliphate and the Viking world was recorded in ancient texts, tales of such journeys often included references to "bulls and giants" making it hard to tell fact from fiction, the researchers said.
"The importance of the studied Birka ring is that it most eloquently corroborates ancient tales about direct multicultural contacts between Viking Age Scandinavia and the Islamic world. Such contacts must have facilitated exchange of goods, culture, ideas, and news much more efficiently than indirect trade involving several merchants in-between," they concluded.
This new evidence of ancient ties between the Vikings and the caliphate comes at a time when Sweden's relationship with the modern Islamic world seems to be problematic. "I think that many Swedes are jealous of immigrant groups. They have a culture, an identity, a history, something that brings you together. And what do we have? We have Midsummer's Eve and such silly things" said the former Swedish prime minister Mona Sahlin.
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