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Have the Vikings ever been to Persepolis?
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Cyrus Shahmiri View Drop Down
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Posts: 6240 		  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Have the Vikings ever been to Persepolis?
    Posted: 02-Jun-2005 at 11:52

http://www.travelexplorations.com/cparticle190995-18562a.htm l

Have the Vikings ever been to Persepolis? The city of Persepolis is from around 500  - 300 B.C. When I was in Persepolis in July this year I heard someone mentioned that these stone sculptures could have something to do with Norwegian Vikings, but how could this make sense? Of course it depends on when they were designed and raised. As known from history that the Vikings used helmets (hats) with horn, but the Viking era spanned from about 750 to 1050. So where is the connection?
The Viking longboat, the most advanced ship available in its time, was a major factor in the success of the Vikings. They could go everywhere. Archaeologists have found evidence of their civilization not only in their homelands of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, but also as far away as Greece and Baghdad in the "old world" and L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada in the "new world". They traded furs, amber, iron objects, walrus ivory and slaves for silks, spices, and silver. A sixth or seventh century bronze Buddha was even found in Helgo, Sweden. The Vikings could also go everywhere.


The mysterious horns at the terrace wall near the palace of Artaxerxes I in the Persepolis.

If not Vikings then Africans or Native Americans?!

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Posts: 1943 		  Quote Reginmund Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Jun-2005 at 13:04
Sounds like nonsense to me.

While it's very likely that Vikings visited this city at one time or another, they almost certainly had nothing to do with that structure.

Helmets with horns? What nonsense is this? There hasn't been found a single Scandinavian helmet dating from the Viking Age with horns. That bogus is just a heritage from the romanticized Vikings pictured in 18th and 19th century European art, a myth later adopted by the modern media. No serious scholar today claims the Vikings wore horned helmets.

Vikings wore round or conical helmets with nasal guards of various types, wealthier men would be able to afford ornately decorated ones.

Viking helmet

It could be worn over a chain coif, or the coif could be fastened directly the helmet in the oriental fashion, like this.
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Posts: 1314 		  Quote Sharrukin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Jun-2005 at 02:35

Helmets with horns are quite ancient in the Middle East.  Perhaps the earliest depiction is perhaps that of Naram-Sin, king of Akkad (c. 2254-2218 BC), on a stele depicting a victory over a northern horde known as the Lullubi.  Horns were a symbol of divinity in ancient Mesopotamia.

http://www.sandrashaw.com/images/AH1L05Steledetail.jpg

http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/Images/ARTH200/po litics/naram_sin.jpg

http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/Images/ARTH200/po litics/naram_sin_det.jpg

 

 
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Posts: 921 		  Quote ramin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Jun-2005 at 03:09
well... even though I don't give much credit to this, but while ago I read 2 Danish archaeologists started tracing the roots of some unsual coins found in Sweden, after passing eastern europe and then Moscow, they hoped to solve the mystery in Azerbaijan or Northern Iran.
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Posts: 1943 		  Quote Reginmund Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Jun-2005 at 07:35
Originally posted by ramin

well... even though I don't give much credit to this, but while ago I read 2 Danish archaeologists started tracing the roots of some unsual
coins found in Sweden, after passing eastern europe and then Moscow, they hoped to solve the mystery in Azerbaijan or Northern Iran.


There's nothing unusual to it, large quantities of Arabian silver coins dating to the Viking age have been found in Scandinavia, especially in Sweden and on the island of Gotland.

The Vikings traded extensively in the region, mainly in luxury goods such as furs, amber and slaves.
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Posts: 921 		  Quote ramin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Jun-2005 at 13:52
so there's been connection?
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Posts: 1943 		  Quote Reginmund Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Jun-2005 at 15:32
Originally posted by ramin

so there's been connection?


Certainly.

In fact, the Vikings even conquered one of the Abbasid Caliphate's cities, Berda'a, located just west of the Caspian sea and at that time renowned for its production of silk.

There were several attempts at recapturing the city, none of them succeeded, despite the fact that the Vikings also had to put down numerous rebellions within the city itself.

Then suddenly, Allah intervened, or so the muslims saw it. An epidemic broke out among the Vikings, according to the chroniclers because they ate too much bad fruit. Most likely it was dysentery.

After a while the Vikings were so reduced they decided it was wisest to abandon the city, they loaded as much loot as possible unto their ships and then sailed away. I'll bet plenty of Arabian silver coins sailed with them.

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Posts: 2268 		  Quote Behi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jun-2005 at 10:52

Have the Vikings ever been to Persepolis?

let's make completely different theory.
Did Persian had first travel to the Vikings land before them???
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Posts: 196 		  Quote mord Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Jun-2005 at 10:45

Books to read about "the Vikings" in the East:

"Rus Viking" (recently published)

"The Emergence of the Rus"

"The Viking Road to Byzantium"

Mord.

errr...left turn at vinland?
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Posts: 62 		  Quote Midas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jun-2005 at 13:54
The last Viking invasion in the East was Istanbul... They never been in Persia...
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Posts: 2810 		  Quote Styrbiorn Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Jun-2005 at 19:37
Originally posted by Midas

The last Viking invasion in the East was Istanbul... They never been in Persia...


Yes they have. As mentioned, Berdaa was temprarily conquered, and the viking voyage of Ingvar the Fartraveller raided the southern coast of the Caspian sea.
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Posts: 8 		  Quote Boreas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Mar-2006 at 03:20

The Russian/Scytian tribes were pretty stirred around 800 AD. They asked Sweden for help, who gave them a Swedish preince to become their new king - to start a new dynasty that could stand a chence of reuniting the Russian/Scytian tribes.

Which certainly proves that the Swedes had a pretty high rating there already before 862, when prince Erik became King Rurik.

Tuling the north of the Caspian Sea they obviously had contact with the Perisans, too. It would be somewhat strange if that were to be the first...

 

 
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Posts: 6565 		  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Mar-2006 at 06:18
Originally posted by Sharrukin

Helmets with horns are quite ancient in the Middle East.  Perhaps the earliest depiction is perhaps that of Naram-Sin, king of Akkad (c. 2254-2218 BC), on a stele depicting a victory over a northern horde known as the Lullubi.  Horns were a symbol of divinity in ancient Mesopotamia.

http://www.sandrashaw.com/images/AH1L05Steledetail.jpg

http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/Images/ARTH200/po litics/naram_sin.jpg

http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/Images/ARTH200/po litics/naram_sin_det.jpg


Right on the nail, as so often, Sharrukin. Horned helmets are typically Sumerian and, unlike the Vikings, they used them in combat too.

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Posts: 6565 		  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Mar-2006 at 06:27
One thing is clear: no mater how much the Vikings (Varangians) travelled in the Middle Ages, they didn't even exist as such in the period that Cyrus mentions.

Also, as it's been mentioned: neither the structure seems to have any relation with Vikings and their helmets nor horned helmets were exclussive of Vikings at all. Sumerians, the oldest civilization of the Planet, used them too:

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Posts: 6565 		  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Mar-2006 at 06:31
Some Sea Peoples also used cow-like helmets:



Participants in the war of Ramses II against Kadesh/Carchemish. These are the Shardana mercenary troops from Sardis in Lydia rather then from Sardinia as held by conventional historians unless some settled there following the Persian wars. We represent them to show how the type of helmets seen here reappear in a somewhat modified form some 225 years later in the days of the Wars of the Sea Peoples among the Greek mercenaries also from Sardis in Lydia.

http://www.specialtyinterests.net/pictoral.html

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Posts: 2394 		  Quote edgewaters Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Mar-2006 at 07:51

I'm positive there is no connection whatsoever, but it rather more resembles the horned structures from Minoan hilltop sanctuaries:

 

 

People should be a little more cautious about this whole similarity=connection idea.
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Posts: 4613 		  Quote Leonidas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Mar-2006 at 08:20
um i am with edgewaters here, it looks minoan more than anything else ive seen.


Edited by Leonidas
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Posts: 8792 		  Quote Zagros Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Mar-2006 at 09:30
The bull was sacred in ancient Iran, the symbol for new year was the lion slaying the bull.
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Posts: 80 		  Quote Seljuk Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Mar-2006 at 10:28

Originally posted by Styrbiorn

Originally posted by Midas

The last Viking invasion in the East was Istanbul... They never been in Persia...


Yes they have. As mentioned, Berdaa was temprarily conquered, and the viking voyage of Ingvar the Fartraveller raided the southern coast of the Caspian sea.

 

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Posts: 1832 		  Quote Iranian41ife Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Mar-2006 at 10:52

they have been to persia under the abbasid caliphate, i dont know about afterwards.
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