Vikings among the Indians...

Kaze

Banned
Before someone says "Oh, no - not another Vikings meet the Maya / Olmec thread" - I am going in a different direction.

A Viking raider takes his ship across Russia, from river portage to river portage he arrives at the Caspian Sea. From river portage to river portage across Iran / Iraq he arrives in the Indian Ocean. From the Indian Ocean, he arrives in Hindu-held lands. What would it be like?

------
Now for a little fun == according to archaeologists there is a tiny ivory Buddha found in a viking horde in Europe.
 
Before someone says "Oh, no - not another Vikings meet the Maya / Olmec thread" - I am going in a different direction.

A Viking raider takes his ship across Russia, from river portage to river portage he arrives at the Caspian Sea. From river portage to river portage across Iran / Iraq he arrives in the Indian Ocean. From the Indian Ocean, he arrives in Hindu-held lands. What would it be like?

------
Now for a little fun == according to archaeologists there is a tiny ivory Buddha found in a viking horde in Europe.

They would actually put horns on their helmets in religious honor towards the sacred nature of bovines :p
 
Now for a little fun == according to archaeologists there is a tiny ivory Buddha found in a viking horde in Europe.
Not to spoil the fun, but probably an artifact of relatively short-to-short trade along the Volga, found in a grave predating the Viking Age.

Now, the first thing you'd need would be an early revitalization of Volga trade to Caspian and Persian markets, which is no easy task due to the deep crisis of the Abbassid dynasty. Conversly, if things are going even worse than IOTL for the Near East, you could maybe see some Norsemen being included into the eastern Saqaliba mercenaries, and having some of them reaching India because reasons. I'd make a nice story but I don't think it would impact much.
 
Before someone says "Oh, no - not another Vikings meet the Maya / Olmec thread" - I am going in a different direction.

A Viking raider takes his ship across Russia, from river portage to river portage he arrives at the Caspian Sea. From river portage to river portage across Iran / Iraq he arrives in the Indian Ocean. From the Indian Ocean, he arrives in Hindu-held lands. What would it be like?

------
Now for a little fun == according to archaeologists there is a tiny ivory Buddha found in a viking horde in Europe.

It's a pretty challenging journey and kind of out of character for what the Norse adventurers did in the area. If you're looking for historical things to build on...well.

There's this (fragmentary and not totally reliable summary, but a place to start): Caspian Raids

And this: Journey Beyond the Three Seas has an actual 15th c. travel account along the very route you're proposing. It does not go well.
 

Kaze

Banned
The archaeologists dated the statue of the Helgo Buddha to the 5th century, likely coming from Kashmir, Northern India. The Buddha probably arrived in Helgo via Swedish merchants whose eastern trade routes were concentrated along Russian rivers such as the Volga.

Last I checked, the 5th century is part of the Viking age.
 
It's a pretty challenging journey and kind of out of character for what the Norse adventurers did in the area. If you're looking for historical things to build on...well.

There's this (fragmentary and not totally reliable summary, but a place to start): Caspian Raids

And this: Journey Beyond the Three Seas has an actual 15th c. travel account along the very route you're proposing. It does not go well.

I think it’s pretty safe to assume in another timeline, the rewards from reaching India would not be worth the hassle since they wouldn’t arrive in great enough force to accomplish much.
 
There was once a river, the Uzboy, connecting the Caspian to the Aral Sea. Theoretically, then Norse traders could have sailed up the Amu Darya (Oxus), however this would only bring them as far as Afghanistan.

MDfzJR2.jpg

nLIvZs0.jpg
 
The archaeologists dated the statue of the Helgo Buddha to the 5th century, likely coming from Kashmir, Northern India. The Buddha probably arrived in Helgo via Swedish merchants whose eastern trade routes were concentrated along Russian rivers such as the Volga.

Last I checked, the 5th century is part of the Viking age.
The Viking age is from 800-1066, atleast in Norway. The 5th century was part of the vendel period or migration era.
 
Last edited:

Kaze

Banned
You forgot about the Danes, Saxons, and Anglos that raided England - I might call that the FIRST viking age - it was not a migration - where in after looting, pillaging, and raping they like Rollo after them set up petty kingdoms across the British Isles.
 
I've never seen any definition of the viking age include the 5th Century, the viking age at least as far as western Europe is concerned is traditionally said to have begun with the sack of Lindisfarne in 793.
 
The archaeologists dated the statue of the Helgo Buddha to the 5th century, likely coming from Kashmir, Northern India. The Buddha probably arrived in Helgo via Swedish merchants whose eastern trade routes were concentrated along Russian rivers such as the Volga.

Last I checked, the 5th century is part of the Viking age.

You've never checked then? ... as 9Fanged said, the traditional date of the beginning of the Viking Age is the Sack of Lindisfarne in 793 ... the main 'competing' date is 789 when Viking ships beached in Weymouth bay (although that might well have been a trading expedition)
 

Kaze

Banned
The Lindisfarne sacking is the SECOND Viking age. There was one before that one as cited above - the Danes, Saxons, and Anglos that raided England in the 500's it was not a migration - where in after looting, pillaging, and raping they like Rollo after them set up petty kingdoms across the British Isles -- was the FIRST.
 
It is not a Viking Age, mostly because it lacked most of the features of what did the Viking Age. Germanic settlement in Britain is less about raiding (it's more a IIIrd century thing for what matter Saxons, while Picts and Gaels had a field day) than settlement of communities and familial groups (something rare at best with Vikings) mixing up with natives and forming distinct identities in a pluri-decennal process. The idea that post-imperial Britain was some sort of Conan the Barbarian redux is, frankly, obsolete.

By contrast, Viking Age involves a focus on trade networks, less settlement than maritime/fluvial dominance.
The idea that Rollo came to control the county of Rouen by "looting and raping" his way in is, honestly, ridiculous and totally ignoring the known networking he did with local nobility (including clerical), especially with the Robertians.
It doesn't mean it was a peaceful take-over overall, but it was certainly negotiated, contrary to raiding.
 
Last edited:
I'm not sure it's that crazy. We know there was a Rus/viking community in Constantinople, and we know Constantinople was trading with the East.

What you need is a viking living in Constantinople being recruited as bodyguard for a merchant going Eastward and boom, vikings in India
 
The Lindisfarne sacking is the SECOND Viking age. There was one before that one as cited above - the Danes, Saxons, and Anglos that raided England in the 500's it was not a migration - where in after looting, pillaging, and raping they like Rollo after them set up petty kingdoms across the British Isles -- was the FIRST.
LSCatilina already explained it better than I could, but the Viking Age was characterized by the phenomenon of Scandinavian raiders roaming Europe pillaging to promote a massive trade network that brought wealth back to their homelands in Scandinavia. It wasn't something that just happened in England, speaking of which the Danes weren't raiding England in the 500's, that was the Jutes who along with the Saxons and Angles were settling England in large numbers as opposed to making raids to bring wealth back home. Furthermore, this whole tangent got started when you tried to correct LSCatilina saying an artifact predated the Viking Age by saying that he's wrong about when the Viking Age started. But that's only wrong based on a definition of Viking Age that, as someone who's read a pretty fair amount of books about both the Viking Age and Iron Age Britain, I've literally only ever seen you use.
 

Kaze

Banned
Okay, okay... I shall ignore my assertion that there Jutes, Saxons, and Angles (last I checked Denmark is part of Scandinavia)- in early part, they did raid and loot the British Iles bringing their wealth home (the word "Viking" means "pirate" and in the terms of the Iron Age monks that wrote of the invasion they called them "pirates" in the early part). On seeing that Iron Age Britain was weak and pragmatically leaderless that like Rollo centuries later decided to move right in and set up petty kingdoms.

Let us get back to the --- Vikings in India. How would it go?
 
speaking of which the Danes weren't raiding England in the 500's
You probably had a Scandinavian element in the Germanic settlements of the 500's, tough : Scandinavia was heavily destabilized by the fall of the Roman Empire (archeological traces of "exploding" polities with more fortifications and replacement of weaponry such as swords by more "egalitarian" low tiers such as axes.)
We know that Danes raided parts of Northern Sea region which might have drove continental Jutes (for example) settled in Gaul or Saxony to move in Britain with already present kinsmen. There's as well a recorded battle between Geats and Franks in 515 along the Rhine, with jury still conferring about the first being Danes or not.

Furthermore, this whole tangent got started when you tried to correct LSCatilina saying an artifact predated the Viking Age
Which is irrelevant anyway, giving Helgo's Buddah was found in a grave dating at earliest from the 8th century : while the Buddah itself is made in a VIth century style,, the grave is not.
 
Okay, okay... I shall ignore my assertion that there Jutes, Saxons, and Angles (last I checked Denmark is part of Scandinavia)- in early part, they did raid and loot the British Iles bringing their wealth home
Not really in the Vth century. By then we have relatively not-hierarchic communities settling in, with new local chiefdoms arising from North Sea exchanges, mostly trough Gaul. North Sea raiding from Old Saxony is more noticable in the IIIrd century.
As for Danes, while raiding is not to be written off in the Vth, there's no much archeological or historical account for this, while we do have some for the continent.

It doesn't mean that Germanic settlement in eastern Britain was especially peaceful, but it was not destructive as Viking raids were (for the good reason, arguably, that Gaels and Picts already helped themselves).

On seeing that Iron Age Britain was weak and pragmatically leaderless that like Rollo centuries later decided to move right in and set up petty kingdoms.
That is simply not supported archeologically or historically : Germanic kingdoms became to appear in the VIth century out of a simple/complex chiefdom process that probably mixed up native and Germanic populations (especially for Wessex), the first tribal petty-kingdoms largely espousing the shape of sub-Roman Britain entities.
There was no planned conquest of, say, Angles in no small part because the communities settling in the Vth century weren't unified at all, were mixed up and only tought themselves as Angles in the middle of a long process of structuration.

At the contrary, Rollo's dominance (or virtually any Viking polity in Northern Europe) is not the result of a political structuration out of desintegrated region, but a opportunistic presence (on which familial communities are hard to spot : we're rather talking of warband outposts) and takeover of maritime/fluvial access, which get stabilized with a formal modus vivendi with native polities and actually depended from it giving that most of these establishment were eventually reappeled : Rollo's Normandy is more or less the exception, thanks to a late settlement of Anglo-Danes and Hiberno-Norses in the early Xth century.

I'd suggest, if you're interested, Britain after Rome by Robin Fierning, and Le Monde Franc et les Vikings by Pierre Bauduin.
 
It's a pretty challenging journey and kind of out of character for what the Norse adventurers did in the area. If you're looking for historical things to build on...well.

There's this (fragmentary and not totally reliable summary, but a place to start): Caspian Raids

And this: Journey Beyond the Three Seas has an actual 15th c. travel account along the very route you're proposing. It does not go well.

Yes, it seems that Afanasy Nikitin did not do too much trade (and the only recorded business transaction was at loss) but the times were different so perhaps a much earlier traveler could do at least slightly better. We can also assume that "the viking raider" is not doing all that raiding (and related "bonus activities" like pillaging, raping, burning, and killing) alone: even Cohen the Barbarian had his Silver Horde :winkytongue: and (less epic figure) Ingvar the Far-Travelled had 200 ships during his raid of 1042 but his target was seemingly Georgia, not India.

I wonder how Abassid Caliphate would impact a transit trade during that period. Its territory was seemingly shrinking under Buyid rule and then expanded again under the Seljuks (as I understand most of the time prior to the disintegration of Seljuk "empire" Caliphs had been mostly figureheads). Were they pro- or anti-trade?
 
I wonder how Abassid Caliphate would impact a transit trade during that period. Its territory was seemingly shrinking under Buyid rule and then expanded again under the Seljuks (as I understand most of the time prior to the disintegration of Seljuk "empire" Caliphs had been mostly figureheads). Were they pro- or anti-trade?
The Abbasids were pro-trade (although I can't really think of a state that was universally anti-trade, even those states that placed embargos or limited trade to a few ports). The Abbasids had a thriving trade with the Rus', usually through middlemen such as the Khazars and Byzantines, but according to ibn Khordadbeh (820-912), the Varangians sometimes carried their goods to Baghdad itself. Additionally, modern archaeological finds have revealed thousands of Abbasid silver dinars in Viking Age hoards, the largest in Sweden.
 
Last edited:
Top