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.

Baltic were based on a number of nonrelevant finds and find contexts the main idea of Linder Welin's was of considerable interest. Could it be that early appearance of the Oriental coins in the Baltic region cannot be studied with the hoard material. Is hoarding a generally late phenomenon in the history of the Oriental coins in the Baltic region. Are there other contexts with Oriental coins which could be used to give us a more varied picture? A good argument for taking this problem very serious is the occurrence of the Westeuropean trading coins of the eighth century not only in Western Scandinavia but also in the Baltic region. These coins except for one hoard only occur as settlement finds and as finds from temporary trading sites. It is also to be remembered that in the fifties of this century not one of these finds was known to us (Callmer 1984 5f). Arguments for an earlier inflow of these types of Oriental coins well before the turn of the eighth century have been put forward as a result of continued excavations of the Staraja Ladoga settlement. Here dendrochronologically dated layers have yielded some coin finds of great interest for our question. In a stratum dendrochronologically dated to ca. 760-770 a Tabaristan halfdrachm minted 768 was recovered and connected with a building erected at the end of the 770-ties another Tabaristan halfdrachm minted 783 was found. Earlier a find of an Omayyad struck 699/700 in the lower layer in Ladoga has been published. A beginning of eastern connections ca. A. D. 750 is more or less explicitly maintained by the Ladoga scholars (Kirpicnikov 1985 22). Do these datings bring us direct proof of an earlier inflow into the Baltic of Oriental coins. The problem is complicated. If we look closer at the other finds in the same layer it is above all the frequently occurring beads and the combs of antler we have reason to discuss (for bead finds see Lvova 1968, Rjabinin 1982, Callmer 1977; for combs see Tempel 1969). Among the bead finds very characteristic are frequent occurrences of segmented beads with silverfoil and covering bluish green glass and white wound beads with brown zigzag. These and some other types of beads could be closely parallelled with assemblages of beads in graves in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. A closer look at these datings makes it probable that the datings arrived at Staraja Ladoga are very early, perhaps even too early. Among the arguments for this is a series of C-14 dates from central Sweden which very well fix the pre Oriental beadmaterial to the middle and the third quarter of the eighth century (Petré 1984123). These dates are strongly corroborated by a most interesting very important new find. Arninge not far north from Stockholm a large barrow with a cremation layer including remains of three persons (graves of this type are very unusual in Sweden) (Arkeologi i Sverige 1981 264 and personal communications by Antiquarian Anders Hedman, Stockholm for which I am most grateful). The grave includes a rich mans burial and the burial of a serf. The third person was a young woman. There are remains of jewellery, probably a disc-onbow fibula, ornamental bronze pendants and numerous beads (Fig. 7). Beads appearing here are to a very considerable extent identical with the beadtypes appearing in the lower substratum E3:3 at Staraja Ladoga. What makes this grave exceptional is the occurrence of ornamental metalwork in the early Gripping beast style (Fig. 8) which is difficult to place later than ca. 800 and two dirhams. They date to 781/2 and 801/2. Even if we allow the time between the minting and the transfer to the Baltic Region to be short the grave must be firmly dated to the first quarter of the ninth century and then probably to the ninth century and then perhaps probably to the middle part of this quarter. This means that we have 31