Torsten wrote:
Peter Heather
Empires
and Barbarians
pp. 565-566
'The relative proliferation of sources also
allows us to explore the operations of this trading network in more detail than
was possible for its Roman-era counterparts. We have already come across some of
the major waterborne routes that Scandinavian adventurers opened up in the ninth
century: particularly, down the Volga and its tributaries to the Muslim world,
and down the Dnieper and across the Black Sea to Constantinople. There were also
land routes running through central Europe into the west, on which Prague was a
major staging post. We can also, importantly, say something about where the
slaves were generally being captured. The Arab geographers report that the Rus
raided westwards for their victims, while the 'western Slavs' raided eastwards.
Confirmation of this picture is provided by the distribution of the Muslim
silver coins that came back north in return for all the slaves and furs.
Striking concentrations emerge. Two are where you might expect: along the Volga
and its tributaries, and in Scandinavia. A third, however, lay between the Oder
and the Vistula, right in the heartland of the Piast state. Even more arresting
is the complete absence of coins in the immense tracts of territory east of the
Vistula and north and west of the Dnieper. Pretty straightforwardly, then, the
coin distributions confirm the reports of the Arab geographers. The areas
without coins are precisely those from which the slaves were being extracted,
caught between the rock of the Rus and hard place of the west
Slavs.'
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Ishinan: Try this one pertaining to OE.
cnyttan/ Dan. knytte "to knit" and compare it to the Classical Arabic
"qntr"
All the best.
Ishinan