#Balticsea

[fliegenengel]

How do people share their feelings? I poured out all my water to manifest myself beyond my shell. Wasn't that enough?

[ghoermann]

Birds of Kiel

[fettfleisch]

Your wood smells so good, even though it's raw and hard, but that doesn't bother me because I like rubbing against you where I can touch the friction because you are cracked so good, and it's that warmth that makes you feel like home to me

[mikeahrens]

balticsea

[inthisrealityorinanother]

09|2024

[voninsterburg]

[schuhcollection]

starfish

[whencyclopedia]

Birka

Birka, located on the island of Björkö in present-day Sweden, was an important trading center and strongly fortified town in the Viking Age which flourished from the 8th through the 10th centuries CE. Along with the town of Hedeby which is located in present-day Denmark, Birka was the most important Viking trading center in Europe. Due to its prime location on Lake Mälaren, which provided sailing access to the Baltic Sea through the Södertälje Canal, Birka attained great wealth as a mercantile settlement and entrepôt with extensive trading ties to Western Europe, Scandinavia, the Slavic and Byzantine east, as well as the Arab World. Birka was also the location where the Frankish missionary St. Ansgar (801-865 CE) first introduced the Swedes to Christianity c. 829-831 CE. UNESCO recognized Birka's importance in early medieval European history, declaring its archaeological site a World Heritage Site in 1993 CE, together with the neighboring site of Hovgården on the island of Adelsö.

Geography & Early History

Birka is located on the Swedish island of Björkö, which sits about 35 km (22 miles) to the southwest of the Viking town Sigtuna and 30 km (19 miles) west of Stockholm. In the Viking Age (c. 790-1100 CE), Lake Mälaren functioned as a bay adjacent to the Baltic Sea, and Birka was thus perfectly positioned near the northern long-distance trade routes that ran between the British Isles, Western Europe, the Kievan Rus, the Byzantine Empire, and the Abbasid Caliphate.

Although Danish and Norwegian Vikings sailed westwards towards the British Isles, Iceland, and Western Europe from the 8th-11th centuries CE, Swedish Vikings sailed eastwards, trading and raiding their neighbors in what is present-day Finland and Estonia as well as the Slavic Wends who inhabited what is now present-day eastern Germany. By the 800s CE, Swedish Vikings had managed to navigate their ships through the rivers of what is now Russia and Ukraine, penetrating as far as the Byzantine Empire and Abbasid Caliphate via the Dnieper, Don, and Volga Rivers. They brought back furs, silks, iron artifacts, and other luxury goods to Birka, which they then sold to merchants from Hedeby and Western Europe. The wealth that traversed the Baltic Sea also helped encourage Birka's founding at some point between c. 750-800 CE. As one of the earliest Viking trading hubs and one which generated (and, in turn, spread) tremendous wealth, Birka can be viewed as a catalyst for social and economic development in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, becoming part of a larger network of trading centers which sprung up across the region.

There had been an earlier trading center on the island of Helgö, which is located about 8 km (5 miles) to Birka's southeast, and it is probable that both Helgö and the area in and around Birka became inhabited sometime around c. 400 CE. The name “Birka” might mean "marketplace" or "place of commerce", although its location on the island of Björkö ("birch island") fosters the idea of a connection with the Old Norse word bjǫrk, meaning "birch tree". It is likely that the Swedish kings who ruled from the nearby island of Adelsö – this is where the royal residence of Hovgården was located – oversaw or took some part in Birka's founding and the organization of economic activities on the island of Björkö. Birka, located in proximity to the royal court, was protected by royal charters as the town greatly enriched royal and noble coffers.

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[chilikroete]

Lassan

[coffeenuts]

[undergroundusa]

"The geopolitical challenges and the political landmines left by the Obama-Biden-Harris administrations and the Sorosian global elite present immediate hurdles for Donald Trump upon his rightful return to office…"

ORIGINAL CONTENT: https://www.undergroundusa.com/p/its-not-just-the-nord-stream-pipeline

LIKE & COMMENT PROTECT FREE SPEECH

[fliegenengel]

sunwater

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Foggy colors III

[fettfleisch]

Jesus didn't wash feet for institutional religion to straightwash and whitewash history

[fabiobruna]

Wandeling II

[voninsterburg]