Vadas Ferenc (szerk.): A Wosinszky Mór Múzeum Évkönyve 15. (Szekszárd, 1990)

Handelsbeziehungen - Johann Callmer: The beginning of the Easteuropean trade connections of Scandinavia and the Baltic Region in the eighth and ninth centuries A. D.

fur resources probably was intensified. The question posed however makes it necessary to come back to the massive occurrence of the Brody-Nevolino belts in Finland. As it was pointed out above it is improbable that these belts were procured by Finns on long distance expeditions to the east. It is more probable that there were regular visits by groups from the East to Finland. Most probably these long distance expeditions were connected with the fur trade. We have at present no positive indication of who these people were but it is likely that their base was in the Volga-Kama area and that they belonged to the local population familiar with travelling in the Taiga zone (Vilkuna 1965 86). Let us now turn to the period ca. 800 and to the ninth century, the period when most scholars maintain the trade between the Baltic and the Orient begins. From this period we have numerous finds of Eastern and Oriental origin in the Baltic region. These finds include beads of glass and semiprecious stones, belt mounts, dresses (textiles and buttons), vessels of glass and metal, pottery, cowroies, jewellery and of course silver coins (Callmer 1977, Hovén 1982, Jansson 1989, Losinski 1988). As already Arne in his work from 1914 pointed out they mainly date to the last quarter of the ninth century and the period ca. A. D. 900 (Arne 1914 223). Later they also frequently occur in the tenth century material. Earlier finds are very few indeed or have not been properly defined. For our understanding of the opening of a direct trade route with the East across Eastern Europe it is then of outmost importance to consider more closely the finds which actually could be dated to the late eighth century and the ninth century with the omission of the last quarter ofthat century. We shall here concentrate on the most well represented categories which are beads and coins. The small number of relevant additional finds will be treated last. Before we begin this survey of the extant material we must turn to the question of whether these finds really are indicative of contacts with the Orient across Eastern Europe or whether they represent a flow of Oriental goods reaching the Baltic via Western Europe. We know diplomatical missions between the Caliphate of the 'Abbäsids and the Carolingian Realm during the second half of the eighth century from historical (Björkman 1965 672). The few written sources also clearly indicate merchant activities between the Middle East and Western Europe (the most complete information is in „The book of roads and countries" by Ibn Chordadbeh 1986). Arabian dirhams are known from a few Westeuropean hoards dated to the late eighth and early ninth centuries but there is so far no reason to doubt that the vast majority of Oriental coins reached the Baltic from the east (cf Duplessy 1956). This is in my opinion also the case with the Northafrican dirhams (cfFominl982 13). More complicated are the problems with Oriental beads in the late eighth and ninth centuries. They occur in many parts of Barbarian Europe and also inside the Carolingian Realm and the Byzantine Empire. As we shall see below it is possible to make a distinction between types of beads (cf Andrae 1975 122ff) which have reached the Baltic from the east and beads which may as well have reached it from the west. Textiles, that is Eastern silks and gold thread worked fine textiles of Oriental origin are also very difficult to judge in a similar way (Kletler 1924 107 f). When they occur in high status burials as the ship grave at Oseberg (Ingstad 1982 94) in Norway they may have reached a petty king's court in Norway as a result of 25