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.
indications of a certain discrepancy between the Ladoga dates and the coin dated grave inventory and the C-14 dates in Sweden. It is of course no great discrepancy but it is most probable that the Ladoga dates are cca two decades too early. It is then more likely that contact with the East begins at the beginning of the last quarter of the eighth century. It is not my task to point out in detail the difficulties with dendrochronology but it must be clear that the linking of the individual curves is a question of statistical valuation. The problems with fir in comparison with oak are also worth considering (thanks to Research ingeneer T. Bartholin, Laboratory of Quaternary biology for discussion). The spread of oriental coins is in my opinion a very rapid process. We have numerous sites which are not large supraregional centers where early dirhams turn up under conditions which suggest their circulation already in the late eighth century or ca. A. D. 800. We can point especially at Helgö (Hovén 1986) but also at a number of other localities on Gotland and on the coasts of southern Sweden and Denmark (Ludström 1981 104f, Kromann 1985 54 (Ribe, Gudme), 59 (Râbylille, Fredriksdal strand, Tisso), Strömberg 1961 43,67,1963 8 and unpublished). A site of this type which I have worked with myself has yielded mostly eighth century finds but also early Oriental beads and dirhams and a Tabaristan halfdrachm (cf Callmer 1984). A number of similar sites are also known through the work of Losinski on the Pommeranian coast (Losinski 1988 1270- In all these cases the coins are found more or less in unstratified contexts and thus the evidence is not conclusive. Although the problem whether these coins could indicate an inflow in the third or the fourth quarter of the eighth century cannot be solved these finds give us a new picture of the massive cirkulation of Oriental coins already around A. D. 800. This could mean that they and a function as standardized values in transactions between traders in the Baltic region. The remaining early Oriental imports are few as already stated and they with few exceptions stem from Birka. The well-known find of the Kashmir Buddha from Helgö (Fig. 9) is not so well stratified that it allows us to state that it belongs to the period in question as a Scandinavian find (Holmgvist 1961112). A considerable part of the find material recovered in the same house however dates to the late eighth and early ninth centuries. There are also six oriental coins from the house dating to from after 718 to after 813 (Hovén 1986 7). There are also numerous Oriental beads of types datable to the late eighth and early ninth centuries (cf Lundström 1981). Among the three fingerrings of Salto vo-Maj aki type found at Birka two are found in graves dating to the middle of the ninth and to the end of the ninth century and one datable to the tenth century (Birka graves 515,526 and 791; see Arbman 1943). An amulet capsule (Birka grave 464; see Arbman 1943) and a fragment of a silver vessel (Birka grave 557; see Arbman 1943) used as a pendant also found at Birka both occur in graves which cannot be dated to a period earlier than the second half of the ninth century and most probably to the end of the century. A similar or even later position chronological is taken up by a gravefound Oriental glassvessel with an engraved decoration (Birka grave 557; see Arbman 1943). In addition to these fingerrings there are also some finds of cornelian sealstones which have been mounted on rings (three unpublished finds from the provinces of Uppland, Vastmanland and Aland). These sealstones occur both with and without design. They all date to the end of the ninth century or later. Recently 32
