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Comment by Yetanfou | Hacker News Reader

1) they didn't [1]

2) ...but the current political climate in Sweden is such that there is a frantic search for anything and everything which can be used to 'prove' that Sweden has always been a melting pot of different cultures (which it hasn't, it used to be one of the most homogeneous mono-cultural countries in the world) so that those who decry the current efforts to make it so can be countered with those arguments. Truth or fiction does not really matter here as those who tend to proffer these 'truths' also tend to adhere to the school of thought which does not hold with 'absolute' truth, instead posing that all truth is relative and should be seen in context of 'alternative' explanations.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/vi...

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The underlying evidence in this case is clearly fragmentary and unclear. When doing historical research, one should always be wary of finding precisely what one is looking for. Any definite statements about these items will require more research, more analysis, and most of all more data.

That said, the idea that Vikings of this era would possess important items with Arabic lettering on them should by no means be seen as a surprising discovery. The Vikings and Arabs of this period were engaged in a truly staggering amount of travel and trade, and the southernmost parts of the Viking area overlapped with the northernmost parts of Arab expansion--particularly in places like Sicily.

For just one hint of the kind of intermixing that was going on, I would recommend skimming the "Viking Age" section of the Wikipedia page on the history of Sicily:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sicily#Viking_Age

> The underlying evidence in this case is clearly fragmentary and unclear.

At least based on what's being reported in the Atlantic article, it seems pretty clear to me: The most distinctive features of the word are inferred, and they're inferred well out past a selvedge. The presumed style of calligraphy appeared 500 years after the textile was made. And people who are familiar with the script are saying that even the parts of the pattern that we have aren't compatible with the idea that it's meant to spell Allah.

I don't have the expertise to evaluate any of those lines of evidence, except perhaps the selvedge question, myself, but, if we take, for the sake of argument, that they're accurate, that is multiple very different lines of evidence that all conflict with the hypothesis. I wouldn't be surprised if that's as clear a disconfirmation as you can typically get in archaeology.

That said, it doesn't render the basic idea risible; we know there was plenty of trade and cultural exchange, and we have plenty of other examples of artifacts with Arabic writing being found at Viking sites. It's just that it seems much more likely that this particular artifact merely exhibits an abstract motif.

Not sure which sources you are referring, but the lettering looks like the earliest Islamic calligraphy (Kufic script, which is beautiful) [1].

This is the word Allah in Kufic:

https://freeislamiccalligraphy.com/?portfolio=allah-square-k...

The line above is ornamental. Pretty close to the clothes design.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kufic

Specifically the square version of Kufic, which is apparently a more recent variant.

First, the style of Arabic that Larsson says she has identified—square Kufic—is not known to have been used in the 10th century; it only became common about 500 years later.

I imagine it's just like how, with the Latin script, anachronistic letterforms can be used as a line of evidence in identifying less-skillful forgeries.

Funny, I see just as many attempts at proving the opposite points, often twisting current news and historical events to fit the narrative.

As a sibling comment pointed out, it would by no means be impossible for Arabic cultural items to have found their way into Viking possessions, given the vast trade networks. And even so, how in the world does 1000-year old interactions threaten your world view of Swedish cultural/racial purity and its relevance in modern times? Getting triggered like this indicates the opposite of the trend you're pointing out (not that they are mutually exclusive).

Also, in Sweden today I could be in actual danger if I made this comment publicly in my own name, for whatever that's worth.

> And even so, how in the world does 1000-year old interactions threaten your world view of Swedish cultural/racial purity and its relevance in modern times?

So what, it must be true because if you don't think it's true, you're a racist?

This particular article points out a specific piece that apparently spells "Allah" only when viewed in a mirror, in a style that didn't exist for another 500 years, with a spelling error.

And no, it's not problematic if it were true. It's problematic that this is being passed as real archaeology when the methodology is extremely biased.

Don't forget that you have to assume they were using some sort of special Tardis textile that's bigger on the inside. That, to me, is the most compelling criticism. Everything else is arguably circumstantial, but it's kind of hard to look past a hypothesis apparently resting on a physical impossibility.

It's hard for me to see this as a big moral loss, either. A more compelling poster child for Vikings' relationship with Islam would be the examples of Vikings converting to Islam that are documented in the historical record. The garment, even if you accept for the sake of argument that it does read Allah, could still just be a prized souvenir.

> And even so, how in the world does 1000-year old interactions threaten your world view of Swedish cultural/racial purity and its relevance in modern times?

I don't know, ask the people "[franticly searching] for anything and everything which can be used to 'prove' that Sweden [or anywhere else] has always been a melting pot of different cultures". They're the ones implying this is relevant, and that Vikings not being influenced by Arabic culture would somehow make white supremacism less stupid.

Also, to add to what several other people have said, modern Arabic, even more so that most illegible scribbles^W^W cursive scripts, is notorious for any random collection of curves looking like a word; I think we're up to three different cases of someone catching a fish with "Allah" written on it's scales. Somehow, I doubt the situation with older Arabic writing systems is any better.

> As a sibling comment pointed out, it would by no means be impossible for Arabic cultural items to have found their way into Viking possessions

Sure, but it also requires time travel into the future to use a script that wasn't used at the time and won't be common for another 500 years, if it was to be Allah, they spelled it wrong (and got lllha), and even this is conjecture based on what they think the pattern would have been because half of that isn't even there and the band would have to be a lot wider than it is to fit that text.

These are some pretty compelling criticisms to which no good answer is given, especially the fact that the text is from the future, which gets no real answer at all except that she "does not agree" for reasons that are left unstated.

The white supremacists are idiots, but this just looks like someone trying to sell alternate history books to me.

> As a sibling comment pointed out, it would by no means be impossible for Arabic cultural items to have found their way into Viking possessions, given the vast trade networks. And even so, how in the world does 1000-year old interactions threaten your world view of Swedish cultural/racial purity and its relevance in modern times? Getting triggered like this indicates the opposite of the trend you're pointing out (not that they are mutually exclusive).

Eh, this is too close to suggesting that anyone who "got triggered" by The Mar Saba Letter is a homophobe. After all, "it would by no means be impossible" that Jesus practiced homosexuality.

> Also, in Sweden today I could be in actual danger if I made this comment publicly in my own name, for whatever that's worth.

I highly doubt that.

The ruling class has always used history as weapon against the people. This has been true thru all of mankind’s history to this day, this piece included.

So why would you then be in trouble when you are just carrying water for the ruling class?

The larger the population, the more unique social events there are, allowing the potential to overfit on any narrative you can conjure up. Today I just saw a headline about one marine who walked out on Trump's SOTU. How many marines attended proudly?

>As a sibling comment pointed out, it would by no means be impossible for Arabic cultural items to have found their way into Viking possessions, given the vast trade networks

And it would still be an irrelevant minority -- not what "vikings" in general "have" embroidered.

> which it hasn't, it used to be one of the most homogeneous mono-cultural countries in the world

Really? Well let's take a few seconds to see what Wikipedia has to offer on the subject:

"Five national minority languages are also recognized by Swedish law: Finnish, Yiddish, Meänkieli, Romani and Sami. "

Interesting approach for a "mono-culture".

"For most of its history, Sweden was a larger country than today. At its height in 1658, the Swedish Empire comprised the territories of what is Finland and Estonia as well as parts of Russia, Latvia, Germany, Denmark and Norway. Hence, Sweden's linguistic landscape has historically been very different from that of today."

And historically, even more diverse. Or is all the above wrong?

Yes, they are mostly wrong. The five national minority languages were explicitly written into law in 1999. In the same article where you got that quote you'll have read (but failed to mention) that 'A significant immigration to Sweden did not start until after World War I' [1]. Also it is a little... far-fetched... to pull in the fact that Sweden used to be a conquering nation - the period called 'stormaktstiden' [2] (the time of great power) here - as 'proof' that Sweden used to be more diverse. It wasn't Sweden which used to be more diverse, it was just that the Swedish kings had turned their country into a well-oiled military machine which was used to spread Swedish influence and power over a large area. It was actually the fact that Sweden was so homogeneous which made it possible for King Gustav I Vasa to take over from the Roman Catholic church and found the Church of Sweden (in 1536) and use its organisation to help create that well-oiled military machine in the first place.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_minority_languages_of...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Empire

Swedish empire was of obvious reasons not a homogenous rule, however the Swedish homeland was except parts of today’s Finland.

Forty percent of all ethnic Swedish males all share the same ancestor Ivar, who came from today’s northern Germany 3500 years ago. This tells us that Sweden didn’t have a lot of migration from the Bronze Age until modern era.

The different minorities where in total numbers compared to ethnic Swedes not that many except the Finns, but after the separation with Finland in 1809 that number decreased significantly.

In 1940 the numbers of individuals that was counted as Romani was about 8000, however many of the Romani arrived in the late 1900th century to Sweden.

Meänkieli is basically a Finnish dialect, a consequence of the separation of Sweden & Finland in 1809.

Many Yiddish speakers arrived to Sweden with the Second World War and the in the late sixties from Poland. In 1930 they where about 6000.

In 1945 it is believed that about 10 000 spoke Sami.

0.7 percent of people living in Sweden year 1900 was born abroad.

I don't have much of an opinion other than to observe that Yiddish & Romani being on that list is worthy of a good chuckle. (I happen to be able to speak a bit of both and I've visited Sweden several times)

I was in Stockholm a few months ago and visited the Viking Museum. One of the most fascinating things were the maps. They highlighted where they knew vikings visited (and rampaged) and where they think they visited (and rampaged). Vikings may have visited Egypt.

It's feasible there were Arabic scripts in relics found in viking graves but asserting they were Muslim is radically different than realizing it could have been pillaged just as easily.

> it used to be one of the most homogeneous mono-cultural countries in the world

I'm having a difficult time understanding what "mono-cultural countries" has to do with this topic.

The modern concept of "country" is often attributed to Westphalian sovereignty from the 1600s, but this article concerns the Norse era.

Norse territory wasn't a mono-culture. The Norse controlled lands on Great Britain, Ireland, and elsewhere, where the Norse were ethnic minorities.

The ethnic Norse on the Scandinavian peninsula were not a mono-culture because some were followed the Christian religion and some followed the Old Norse religion.

Nor were the genetics a mono-culture. During the Norse times, about 10% of the population were thralls, and a substantial fraction of that captured non-Norse slaves, some of whom became freedmen.

Then there were the Geats, Swedes, and Gutes.

That said, I'm fine with saying that the diversity of the Scandinavian peninsula has varied, and that in more recent history, especially after the rise of the strong centralized state, it was much closer to a mono-culture.

incorrect.

They emphatically had trade. Whether or not they did it because they knew what it said - or didn't - or didn't care - is where politics comes in.

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