8 hours agoThe mystery of the skeleton of the medieval warrior: Was it Viking or slave?
Periskopi(7 years ago)
(7 years ago)For decades, archaeologists have found it hard to determine the identity of a 10th - century skeleton that had been discovered in Prague Castle, and the remains of which were also detonated by the Nazis but also by Soviets for ideological reasons. But efforts to put a clear ethnic label on [...]
But efforts to place a clear ethnic label on the 1,000-year-old corpse have revealed more about us than about him.
He stands on his left side, with his right hand resting on an iron sword. On the left hand is a pair of knives, skeleton fingers arrive as if they were touching those knives.
On the elbow is a tool that could have been a razor a symbol of his social status rather than anything else, writes the BBC, translates Periscope.
On his feet are the remains of a wooden bucket.
But it is the sword of the warrior that I can see immediately. Just under three feet [1 m], there is one thing that marks power and beauty despite ten - century corruption.
Was it Viking?
“The sword is of a high quality, probably made in Western Europe,” said Professor Jan Frolin, a medical archaeologist at the Czech Academy of Sciences.
This type of sword was used mainly by Vikings in northern Europe, present - day Germany, England, and Central Europe. But not just from them.
How was the skeleton adopted by the Nazis and Soviets?
When the Nazis seized Prague in 1939, they immediately took on the Viking theory because it was adapted to their racial purity enjoy.
The Vikings, after all, were Nordic and therefore German.
Soon after the war, however, Soviet influence was extended to Prague, and things changed completely.
The skeleton's Northeast returned to its ancient interpretation, which said he was a member of the Premislide Slavic dynasty, which ruled with Bohemia for more than 400 years until 130.
Where was he really from?
Seventy years later, archaeologists are free to make judgments based on science, not ideology.
We know for sure he wasn't born here, in Bohemia,” said one of them. Tests of his teeth explained that the warrior had grown up in northern Europe, most likely on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, or perhaps Denmark.
But even though he's supposed to be born in Baltic, that doesn't mean he was a Viking. There were slaves, Baltic tribes, and others in Baltic.
Prague archaeologist believes that the warrior from the north who died from unknown causes at the age of 50 came to Prague in his old age. /Periscope
