The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the eastern silver crisisin the mid 10th century on the cultural connections and trade routes of the Late VikingAge Sveonic realm. By studying status symbols, such as weapons, glassand the decorative parts of the male and female dress, I expected to find that eastern influencesdeclined in favour of more western elements. This proved to beproblematic. The material indicates a continued strong cultural exchange between the Sveonic realmand theSlavic regions, even though trade clearly shifted westward. My explanation for this is thateven though, and perhaps because of, king and church favoured a shift towards west, the demand for western goods other than silverremained low during the late 10th and 11th century.In addition to this,even though the direction of trade shifted, it was still largely conducted within the Slavic cultural sphere. There is also very little indicating the presence of foreign merchantsother than Slavicand probablyFrisianin early Sigtuna. My explanation for this is that the Sveonsmainly went overseasto sell their merchandise, and that they were forced to do so since Sigtuna,as opposed to Birka, could offer no unique goods which wouldattract foreign merchants.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-40897 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Schultzén, Joakim |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Arkeologi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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