Small things and wide horizons from a Birka perspective

The excavations of one of the plots in the Black Earth at Birka revealed an unusually large number of objects associated with long-distance eastern contacts. Among the objects was a Volga Bulgarian pot and a hoard containing Volga Bulgarian imitations of dirhams. The surprisingly high proportion of Volga Bulgarian coins in the hoard indicates that the person(s) who lived on the plot in the mid tenth century may actually have spent time in Volga Bulgaria. It is no coincidence that the finds point to this region. In the tenth century several important trade routes converged in this area, where Rus’, Khazarian and Muslim merchants came to trade.