Auch auf die Gefahr hin, dass einige Schnappatmung bekommen, man hat auf Grabklamotten die Inschrift ‚Allah‘ und ‚Ali‘ eingenäht gefunden:
But a new investigation into the garments - found in 9th and 10th Century graves - has thrown up groundbreaking insights into contact between the Viking and Muslim worlds.Patterns woven with silk and silver thread have been found to spell the words "Allah" and "Ali".


The breakthrough was made by textile archaeologist Annika Larsson of Uppsala University while re-examining the remnants of burial costumes from male and female boat and chamber graves originally excavated in Birka and Gamla Uppsala in Sweden in the late 19th and mid-20th centuries.


She became interested in the forgotten fragments after realising the material had come from central Asia, Persia and China.


Larsson says the tiny geometric designs - no more than 1.5cm (0.6in) high - resembled nothing she had come across in Scandinavia before.


"I couldn't quite make sense of them and then I remembered where I had seen similar designs - in Spain, on Moorish textiles."
Es wird jetzt gerätselt, ob es Muslime bspw. Aus Persien waren oder aber das nordische Begräbnis islamisch beeinflusst wurde.

Larsson has so far found the names on at least 10 of the nearly 100 pieces she is working through, and they always appear together.The new find now raises fascinating questions about the grave's occupants.


"The possibility that some of those in the graves were Muslim cannot be completely ruled out," she says.


"We know from other Viking tomb excavations that DNA analysis has shown some of the people buried in them originated from places like Persia, where Islam was very dominant.


"However, it is more likely these findings show that Viking age burial customs were influenced by Islamic ideas such as eternal life in paradise after death."

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