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.

I shall not here discuss in detail the changes in frequency of hoards throughout the ninth century nor shall I comment at length on the changing composition of the coin stock. The changing frequency of deposition of hoards is a phenomenon which in my opinion has been paid too much attention to. There is not a material basis for a certain tendency in these changes for most decennia of the ninth century (cf Lebedev 1982 158). Only the second decade of the century and the sixties may be regarded as periods of an exceptional hoarding activity. In both cases hoarding can be connected with certain areas. In the first case Eastern Russia stands out with a considerable number of hoards (Losinski 1988133f). This is especially notable since that area otherwise has very few hoards. In the second case we could point at the central part of the Baltic with Gotland, Öland, the coast of Smâland and Uppland in Sweden and Latvia as an area of excessive hoarding. To the east the Ilmen' Basin and the Dvina Basin adjoin with numerous hoards dated to the sixties. Whether these peaks of hoarding indicate historical processes with uncertain conditions and obstacles for trade we do not know. The main indication of the hoards is certainly a continuous inflow to and a continuous use of Arabic dirhams in the Baltic. Since the function of the coins was to make trade easier they were normally not hoarded and consequently circulating among traders. This explains to a certain degree that very large masses of early coins could play an important role in a later context (Callmer 1980 204f). There have been raised voices which have suggested an earlier beginning of the inflow of the Oriental coins. The basis for these arguments was the occurrence of a surprisingly high number of Sassanian drachms and Omayyad dirhams found in graves and in cultural layers. Linder Welin presented a list of finds in 1976 (Under Welin 1974 22f). A closer look at these finds however proved that they were not relevant to the earlier dating of the influx of Oriental coins to the Baltic region. The graves cited could from the gravegoods which were found together with the coins be dated much later. Coins found in layers on sites could also be shown to occur in much later contexts. In fact not a single find from the list could be placed as early as the first half of the eighth century or even the later part of the eighth century. A vast majority of the finds were to be dated about A. D. 900 or even later (Callmer 1976). There must consequently be something special with the occurrence of these Omayyad and Sassanian coins in such a late milieu and they are remarkably numerous, of fortysix graves with Oriental coins from Sweden excluding Birka as many as seven were furnished with Sassanian or Omayyad dirhams as the late latest dating coins (based on a find list compiled by dr. K. Jonsson with minor additions; I am much in debt to dr. Jonsson for his help). In Birka the early coins appear alone more seldom. Only four graves have so early dating coins of a total of 86 graves with datable Oriental coins (cf Arbman 1943). This suggests that the inflow of Omayyad dirhams some time perhaps in the middle or in the late ninth century was not primarily connected with Birka. In the light of these observations we must look with even more suspicion on the hoard fragment from Klainingrad/Königsberg of Omayyad dirhams with tpq 745/6 and which most scholars doubt the validity of (Kropotkin 1971 80). It remains solitary. In this connection it is also motivated to point at surprisingly high numbers of Omayyad dirhams, in some hoards reaching as much as 20% (e. g. Jagosury in the Vjatka Basin, tpq 843) (Markov 1910 8). Even if this argument of Linder Welin's and others that the Sassanian coins and the Omayyad dirhams did represent an early inflow of Oriental coins to the 30