Re: [tied] Geats

From: Håkan Lindgren
Message: 8255
Date: 2001-08-02

I also took a look at the web page Torsten referred to -

http://gotland.luma.com/origin%20of%20svear.html

And if you ask me, this looks like one of the private histories that are common on the net. Maybe his comments on Gotland (that the ancient sources, when talking about the island of Scandia, didn't mean Scandinavia, but the island of Gotland) are good, but otherwise... Some comments to his points -

"3. The Svear used the Roman Julian calendar which is considered to have been introduced in Uppland about the year 500. Still in the 17th century the Disthing-day in Uppsala was calculated according to this calendar."

Confirmation, please.

"9. The helmets in the Vendel graves in Uppland are also interesting. They are identified as the helmets of the Roman Imperial guards, the model that was in use in the 5th century."

Oh yeah? I've never heard this before and would like some sources for this. Was there even a Roman Imperial guard as late as the 5th century? And this doesn't imply (as the author seems to mean) that the people buried in those helmets were Roman guards. There was a lot of long-range trade going on, for example, in the viking-age town where I grew up Arabian silver coins have been found in the ground, but this doesn't mean that Arabs once inhabited this town.

"6. In the Old Uppsala mounds the burial build-up, according to professor Sune Lindqvist, has been done in a similar way as the Roman Royal cremations."

"Roman Royal"? Were there burial mounds in Rome?

"10. Snorri Sturluson tells in Heimskringla about the origin of the Æsir (the men from Asia) --"
[I would like to hear what an etymologist says about this - are the Asa gods (I use the modern Swedish form of this word) really related to Asia?]
"--- Odin thought that they had found beautiful fields and good soil and he chose a place that now is called Sigtuna."
[I grew up in that town. Somehow all this seems a little ridiculous to me. Anyway, if this is what Snorre says, given the distance in time and space (Snorre died in the 13th century), how much can we use him as a reliable historical source?]

Etc.

Hakan