by Cat Jarman
The next day Anwar takes me to the source of the minerals and on the way I wonder if I am the only Scandinavian to have made the full journey from Repton to Ratanpur, where the carnelian mines are to be found. But I am certainly not the first European to have gone hunting for these mines. In 1814, a certain John Copeland, Esq. described his trip there: ‘We passed in our left the little village of Rutunpoor […] And proceeded onward by a narrow footpath through a jungle, having rising ground almost the whole way to the mines. The diversity of scenery – hills and valleys, pebbly beds of rivers, precipitous rocks, and extensive plains covered with jungle – was sufficiently romantic. On account of the Tigers with which the country abounds, no human habitations were found nearer the mines than Rutunpoor, which is seven miles off.’
There are no tigers left by the time I get here, but I share Copeland’s view of the scenery as romantic, although the jungle has largely gone too. Driving through the parched Gujarati landscape, Anwar jumps out of the car at regular intervals, having spotted outcrops by the roadside: carnelian, jasper, bloodstone. When I see the rocks, the light, matte-surfaced pebbles seem unremarkable: light years away from the translucent reds and oranges that are in museum displays across the Viking world. But when Anwar starts picking them up and striking them, he shows me how the unremarkable turns remarkable – the variation in colour comes to light in the scar of their split and I begin to see what he sees.
While pebbles in many places abound on the surface, to get the quantities needed to fill today’s ongoing thirst for the stones (a truck is filled every fifteen days) a more extensive approach is needed: deep pits are dug up to ten metres below ground, mirroring the account of Copeland: ‘The mines are in the wildest part of the jungle, and are very numerous; they are shafts working perpendicularly downward about four feet wide; the deepest we saw was fifty feet: some, extend in an horizontal direction at the bottom.’
The earliest reference to these mines is in the sixteenth-century account of Ludovico de Varthema, an Italian traveller who visited Khambhat in 1504. This is thought to be around the same time that four Muslim brothers came from Africa and set up a new carnelian industry in the hills of Ratanpur: these hills are the final place that Anwar takes me and where he goes to pray. The mosque at the top of the hill is dedicated to Baba Ghor, the patron saint of bead-makers. While I wait for him, I climb the hill and the view is breathtaking. It is impossible not to feel moved by the thousands of years of history in these hills and plains; to consider the remarkable distances that those minerals have travelled. While there is no archaeological evidence here dating to the ninth century, to prove that the Repton bead travelled this way, we know Arab traders were settling around the Gulf of Khambat possibly as early as the seventh century. This means that trade with Baghdad would likely have flourished, including, I imagine, the trade in Ratanpur carnelian.
Al-Masudi travelled to Gujarat in 918 and stated that in Bharuch, on the Narmada river, there was a community of ten thousand Muslims: this is around thirty kilometres from Ratanpur. Yet after my visit to the mining areas, the lack of physical evidence doesn’t surprise me. These were cottage industries that would have left behind little archaeological trace. There is, however, some hope in the future that we might get answers from the beads themselves: work is progressing on analysing the mineral directly, using both isotope analysis and trace element analysis. In principle, both can be applied to match chemical signatures in specific beads to possible sources from a geographic region. There are not yet enough reference materials available, but I am confident that it will happen soon.
Before I leave India, I travel to a beach on the Gulf of Khambat outside Surat (in Khambat, the original port, the harbour has silted up entirely and can no longer be used by boats). I want to see the sea, and looking out towards the west, I think of all the people whose lives have been affected by the global trade in precious stones. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, carnelian beads were used to buy slaves in central Africa: a girdle of beads would have bought you one slave. On the coast of Africa, cargoes from past shipwrecks are often washed ashore, tiny beads found on the beach to remind us of this chilling trade; all part of the ‘Sea Silk Route’ as some have called it.
Going back to the Viking Age, the trade in beads like this died down too when the flow of eastern silver began to cease. The flood became a trickle until eventually it was barely present at all. Yet the changes it had brought with it over the years were immense. Whole new states had formed either directly or indirectly in response to the allure of the metal and to the adventure and entrepreneurship of those who had travelled vast distances on those eastern rivers.
Hundreds of years of goods, people and ideas travelled too, joining the camel caravans that moved to and from the inland deserts of the Middle East. Somewhere there, the River Kings were absorbed into the highways of the Silk Roads, as objects – including beads – moved along ancient routes to supply a newly created demand in the west, their stories interweaving into a ribbon stretching far beyond anyone’s imagination.
KHAMBAT, GUJARAT, C.825
In the stifling heat, a woman sits inside a hut on the outskirts of the bustling port of Khambat. The street outside is full of noise, animals and people vying for space. On the floor next to her stands a small basket of neatly cut stones; in front of her, the tools are lined up carefully. There is a small lathe beside her, and she gingerly removes the bead she has been working on, the final one left to cut, and holds it up to the light. There are some flaws in it, and the diamond shapes on either side are a little uneven, but it can’t be helped. Nobody pays much attention to that level of detail. And the flaws prove it’s genuine, that’s what her father told her, the first time he let her come with him to collect the precious cargo up in the hills when she was a little girl. She likes to make up stories, in her mind, of who might end up wearing them, who might pick them up just like her and study the way the sun shines through the mineral’s hazy surface. She has been told that some of them travel far across the sea, to lands where the sun stops shining at will and the rivers turn solid and cold in the winter. That these beads are prized and treasured; the best that can be found anywhere. She tries to imagine the bead strung in a chain around someone’s neck, a beautiful woman with flowing long hair, just like her mother. But she will never know whose hands and lives this bead will touch.
PICTURE SECTION
The carnelian bead discovered in Repton.
personal collection
The mass burial in Repton, found underneath a mound inside one room of a partially destroyed Anglo-Saxon building.
Martin Biddle
Grave 511, the ‘Repton warrior’, buried with objects including a Thor’s hammer pendant and a sword by his left leg.
Martin Biddle
The juvenile grave from Repton, containing four young people buried together outside the mound.
Martin Biddle
The chamber grave of Bj.581, the ‘Birka warrior woman’, surrounded by weapons and with two horses at her feet.
Swedish History Museum
The tenth-century Vale of York hoard, discovered by metal detectorists in 2007.
© The Trustees of the British Museum
A ring with a Kufic-style inscription found in a woman’s grave in Birka.
Swedish History Museum
A silver cap mount from Birka grave Bj.581.
Swedish History Museum
Another cap mount found in a grave in Shestovitsa, Ukraine.
A selection of silver arm rings and other objects found in the Spillings hoard from the island of Gotland in Sweden.
W. Carter
Excavations of the Oseberg ship burial, 1904–5. This was the final resting place of two women buried in AD 834.
Viking Ship Museum, Oslo, Norway
The Oseberg ship, now displayed in the Viking Ship Museum, Oslo.
DEA / FOTOTECA INASA / Getty Images
The so-called ‘Buddha bucket’ with a
fitting of possible Irish origins found in the Oseberg grave.
Saamiblog
A runestone found on Berezan Island in Ukraine, raised by a man named Grani in memory of his business partner Karl.
Alchetron
A runic inscription from Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, with the name Halfdan.
Hermann Junghans
Four views of the figurine of a woman bearing weapons, possibly a Valkyrie, discovered in Denmark.
Asger Kjærgaard / Odense Bys Museer
FOOTNOTES
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PROLOGUE: CARNELIAN
fn1. Throughout this book, the term ‘west’ will be used to loosely represent north-western Europe and parts of the North Atlantic, while ‘east’ represents areas from the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, through the river systems of eastern Europe and to the Middle East.
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1 HAMMER OF THOR: BONES
fn1. This historical source is a compilation of accounts surviving in a number of versions, which detail the history of England from 60 BC until the twelfth century. The majority of the text was compiled in the ninth century in monasteries in the southern Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex.
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fn2. Both the terms ‘Viking’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon’ can arguably be seen as purely modern inventions: they are unlikely to have made sense to someone living in the ninth century. Here, the term ‘Viking’ is used to describe in a very broad sense the people and cultural traits that emerged and spread from Scandinavia during the Viking Age. The term ‘Anglo-Saxon’, while subject to a long history of misuse by racists and extremists, remains a widely understood frame of reference for the communities and kingdoms of England between the fifth and early eleventh centuries. Neither this nor Viking is used to imply ethnicity; they are, simply, the most useful, if inaccurate, terms we have available today.
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6 KING PIECE: HEADING EAST
fn1. The Holy Roman Empire was a complex of territories and political institutions in central and western Europe, largely what is now parts of France, Germany and Italy, that was in existence from 800 to 1806. Technically, Charlemagne’s title was ‘Charles, most serene Augustus, crowned by God, great and pacific emperor, governing the Roman empire’.
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fn2. Later on the name was to be transferred to the better-known site of Novgorod (‘new town’).
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8 BEAD: CROSSROADS
fn1. Tar and pitch are often used interchangeably. Here pitch refers to the sticky resin obtained from trees and other organic sources.
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9 DRAGON’S HEAD: TO MIKLAGARD AND BEYOND
fn1. The Chronicle states that Askold and Dir stopped off in what was to become Kyiv, where they ruled the state of the Poliane. This was, apparently, a Slavic state in existence when the Rus’ arrived, although no other evidence has corroborated this.
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fn2. It is perhaps significant to note that this region was also a source of carnelian, making it another possible origin for the beads that reached the north.
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NOTES
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1 HAMMER OF THOR: BONES
1. A number of works have discussed the origins of the Viking Age in recent years; see for example J.H. Barrett (2008), ‘What Caused the Viking Age?’, Antiquity, 82 (317): 671–86, and D. Griffiths (2019), ‘Rethinking the Early Viking Age in the West’, Antiquity, 93 (368): 468–77.
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2. For details of these excavations, see M. Biddle and B. Kjølbye-Biddle (1992), ‘Repton and the Vikings’, Antiquity, 66: 36–51. and M. Biddle and B. Kjølbye-Biddle (2001), ‘Repton and the “Great Heathen Army”, 873–4’, in J. Graham-Campbell (ed.), Vikings and the Danelaw: Select Papers from the Proceedings of the Thirteenth Viking Congress, Nottingham and York, 21–30 August 1997. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
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3. Whether such graves with weapons should be considered those of ‘warriors’ is widely debated in archaeology in general. See e.g. N. Price, C. Hedenstierna-Jonson, T. Zachrisson, A. Kjellström, J. Storå, M. Krzewińska, T. Günther, V. Sobrado, M. Jakobsson and A. Götherström (2019), ‘Viking Warrior Women? Reassessing Birka Chamber Grave Bj.581’, Antiquity, 93 (367): 181–98. doi:10.15184/aqy.2018.258 with sources cited.
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4. For a thorough overview of the Ragnar Lothbrok legend, see Chapter 2 of Eleanor Parker (2018), Dragon Lords: The History and Legends of Viking England. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
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5. J. Kershaw and E.C. Røyrvik (2016), ‘The “People of the British Isles” Project and Viking Settlement in England’, Antiquity, 90 (354): 1670–80.
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6. Anyone alive in the tenth century who passed on their genes has so many descendants today that this information is academically meaningless. For a thorough explanation, see Adam Rutherford (2016), A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
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7. Catrine L. Jarman, Martin Biddle, Tom F.G. Higham and Christopher Bronk Ramsey (2018), ‘The Viking Great Army in England: New Dates from the Repton Charnel’, Antiquity, 92 (361): 183–99.
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8. These may have been organised under the concept of the lið, warrior bands or retinues under a joint leader. See B. Raffield, C. Greenlow, N. Price and M. Collard (2016), ‘Ingroup Identification, Identity Fusion and the Formation of Viking War Bands’, World Archaeology, 48: 35–50.
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9. T.D. Price, K.M. Frei, A. Siegried Dobat, N. Lynnerup and P. Bennike (2011), ‘Who Was in Harold Bluetooth’s Army? Strontium Isotope Investigation of the Cemetery at the Viking Age Fortress at Trelleborg, Denmark’, Antiquity, 85: 476–89.
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10. Viking raids certainly took place in both places, with new research suggesting Viking camps might also have been found on the Iberian Peninsula. See Irene García Losquiño (2019), ‘Camps and Early Settlement in the Viking Diaspora: England, Ireland and the Case of Galicia’, Summa, 13: 37–55. It is also possible for certain physiological reasons to cause elevated oxygen ratios.
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11. A.B. Gotfredsen, C. Primeau, K.M. Frei and L. Jørgensen (2014), ‘A Ritual Site with Sacrificial Wells from the Viking Age at Trelleborg, Denmark’, Danish Journal of Archaeology, 3: 145–63.
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2 DIRHAM: SILVER FOR A SLAVE
1. S. Goodacre, A. Helgason, J. Nicholson, L. Southam, L. Ferguson, E. Hickey, E. Vega, K. Stefansson, R. Ward and B. Sykes (2005), ‘Genetic Evidence for a Family-based Scandinavian Settlement of Shetland and Orkney during the Viking Periods’, Heredity, 95 (2): 129–35.
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2. See http://vikingmetalwork.blogspot.com/
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3. I am grateful to Jane Kershaw for facilitating this preliminary identification by Jani Oravisjärvi.
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3 SHIP NAIL: RIVER KINGS
1. K. Hjardar and V. Vike (2016), Vikings at War. Oxford: Casemate Publishers, p. 139.
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2. E. Andersson Strand (2016), ‘Segel ock segelduksproduktion i arkeologisk kotext’, in M. Ravn, L. Gebauer Thomsen, E. Andersson Strand and H. Lyngstrøm (eds.) Vikingetidens sejl. København: Saxo-Instituttet, Københavns Universitet, p. 22.
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3. The Younger Edda. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company 1901), Kindle edition.
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4. D.M. Hadley, J.D. Richards, H. Brown, E. Craig-Atkins, D. Mahoney Swales, G. Perry, S. Stein and A
. Woods (2016), ‘The Winter Camp of the Viking Great Army, AD 872–3, Torksey, Lincolnshire’, Antiquaries Journal, 96: 23–67.
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5. G. Williams (2013), ‘Towns and Identities in Viking England’, in L. Ten Harkel and D.M. Hadley (eds.), Everyday Life in Viking-age Towns: Social Approaches to Towns in England and Ireland, c.800–1100. Oxford: Oxbow Books, p. 13.
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6. Cited in P. Holm (1986), ‘The Slave Trade of Dublin, Ninth to Twelfth Centuries’, Peritia, 5: 317–45, p. 325.
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7. S. Mcleod (2006), ‘Feeding the Micel Here in England c.865–878’, Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association, 2: 144.
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8. A.M. Heen-Pettersen (2014), ‘Insular Artefacts from Viking-Age Burials from Mid-Norway. A Review of Contact between Trøndelag and Britain and Ireland’, Internet Archaeology, 38.
