Mar 1, 2005, 4:37 PM

Danish team seeking traces of Viking contacts in Iranian museum

TEHRAN, Mar. 1 (MNA) -- A team of Danish archaeologists is conducting research in the coin section of the National Museum of Iran (NMI) to identify possible links between the Vikings and the Iranian people during the early Islamic era, Elaheh Asgari, the curator of the coin section of the museum announced on Tuesday.

Several years ago, Danish underwater archaeologists found over 100,000 coins in a sunken Viking ship near Denmark, and a number of them were from the early Islamic era.

 

The Danish team led by Nadia Haupt has been studying at the NMI for the past two months in an effort to discover possible relations between the Scandinavians and the Iranians of the early Islamic era.

 

“Water has worn the coins as well as a number of the other items found, thus the artifacts can only be researched through comparison with other similar coins,” Asgari added.

 

The team previously traveled to Spain and Russia to conduct research in the coin sections of those countries’ museums, but the results of their studies have not yet been published.

 

Vikings were Nordic peoples -- Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians -- who raided and settled in large areas of eastern and western Europe during a period of Scandinavian expansion from about 800 to 1100.

 

MMS/HG

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MNA

News ID 10561

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