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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 August 2021 and 6 December 2021. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
MooglinRouge,
Purlspearls.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 15:49, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
I find the statement "Generally regarded as Sweden's oldest town" to be fairly odd, as the article itself states that the settlement was established in the 8th century, while the Uppåkra article describes that town as having already been prominent for centuries by that point. Either one of the articles is way off on the dating, or that sentence is. I guess some people might argue that Uppåkra wasn't located in Sweden at the time, but there wasn't really any Sweden for Birka to be located in at the time either. - Alltat ( talk) 13:57, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Hmm. I don't know how or if this should be fitted into the article, but I thought I'd throw it up here since it deserves mention: There's a picture of the 17th century map of Björkö from Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna. It was known at that time that Björkö had had some historical significance, but it was not known that it was Birka. (This is mentioned)
What's a bit interesting is that Suecia also has a map of 'old Sweden' with Birka on it, where the location was erroneously guessed to be somewhere up in the middle of Uppland. Maybe we could get a picture of that detail of the map? It'd be a good illustration of the fact that they didn't know where it was. -- BluePlatypus 07:53, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Why is there no mention that the island is still used for farming and other information about the current structures on the island? I would like to see information about the small church just east of Birka village, as well as all the modern living that occurs on the island.
I remember reading a very convincing Swedish book about Linköping as the most probable Birca, especially based on Linköping's otherwise unexplained high status in early Swedish christianity and missionary work on the Baltic sea. Would anyone remember the name of the book? -- Drieakko 05:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest separation of Birka and Björkö articles. Björkö article would concentrate on excavation results on the island and Birka article to go through the remaining evidence on Birka, which at the end of the day does not too well match with the Björkö location. Articles would be well linked to each other. Kindly tell me your opinions about this split. -- Drieakko 04:56, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Still bothered by Björkö and Birca being handled in the same article. I know this sounds like a sacrilege to some editors, but I'd still like to separate them to clearly have historical data and archaelogical finds separated from popular theories. We could not start the current article with Adam of Bremen's words: "Birca was the main Göta town" which would sound very strange when talking about the Björkö settlement. -- Drieakko 12:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
There seems to be a critical opinion among a group of scholars that dates the earliest phase of the Björkö settlement only in the mid-9th century and its growth to town-size at the end of the 9th century. Finds from the massive graveyards outside the city do not go further back in time than the late 9th century. This questions Björkö's position as the legendary Birka. It does not seem to have been there yet when Ansgar arrived in Birka in 829 and was already destroyed when Adam told about it in the 1060s. Claims about Björkö town being already established in the mid-8th century seem to have originated from the fact that since Ansgar arrived in a full-grown town in 829, it must have been established well before. I have failed to find reliable data dating Björkö town earlier than the mid-9th century. As Björkö town faded away along with eastern trade collapsing around 975, it probably was created when the eastern trade originally took off with the Varangians in control of the Kievan Rus from the 850s onwards. -- Drieakko 18:23, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
The comments posted above regarding the dating of Birka are clearly dated and simply incorrect. Birka is an archaeological site, and while there are historical sources that can give credence to this urban proto-town, they are far from the only source of Birka's existence. Calling Birka "a short-lived ghetto built for foreign traders that flooded into Sweden" is incredibly incorrect, biased and insulting. There was a lot of material culture which would disprove this prepostoros claim, not to mention isotopic analysis of skeletal remains which does not show any data of "slaves", but rather well-nourished and travelled individuals. Birka had an activity period of approximately 750 to 950 CE, and the island of Björkö was inhabited for a period before this. Exactly how long is yet unknown. The town had vast trading connections, which can be supported both trough isotopic analysis and the material culture from the site, and at its largest Birka housed between 500 to 2000 individuals. Unfortunately, there are very few cases of absolute dating for the habitation sites of Birka. Most of the isotopic and radiocarbon data originates from the burial, and this poses a multitude of problems. First of all, the inhumations were all excavated by Hjalmar Stolpe in the 1870's, and while he was an excellent archaeologist for his time, a lot of mistakes were made. Among many, the skeletal material was jumbled, excavational records were not kept, and much of the material has not aged well. New excavations need to be conducted on the burial site of Birka, as less than 10% has thus far been excavated. The habitation sites have recieved less attention and primarily been dated through relative dating methods, such as typology and bead chronology. Even the latest dates places an origin of Birka to around 750. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.212.147.118 ( talk) 20:30, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
The author of the text wants to promote the idea that Birka was far from Uppsala, based on speculations. This is fraudulent.
The wording "not far" in this section:
is compared with this section:
It got to be there to prove something... Is it supposed to prove that Birka might be as far from Uppsala as it was to Finland?
First of all, how can any credibility be put into a section that starts with "we have been told". Secondly, have you seen maps from that time? Here are two maps:
Here we can see two early maps and how they estimate the distances between Sweden and Kvenland. Compare that with the distance between Uppsala and Skara.
Now, we can go on speculating forever about this "not far" part, but I am not one of those people who do that on Wikipedia. Speculations must themself be sources by credibile sources, who interprets the text in the same way.
I ask other contributers to comment and make the necessary changes in the article.
Fred- Chess 21:19, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I share Fred's concerns that the article should not be hijacked towards unsubstantiated speculations. Birka's relationship to Finland cerntainly qualifies as a speculation. On the other hand, I am in favour of quoting primary sources, as long as the quotations are pertinent. When working on Sviatoslav I of Kiev (which was promoted to FAs a few days ago), I consistently defended quoting the Primary Chronicle, but was generally opposed by other contributors and guys from WP:VPP. I posted on WP:RFC a request for uninvolved editors to comment on the issue. -- Ghirla -трёп- 08:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Who translated this? I'm not quite following where all the "primary material" is coming from as it is in English, but the references don't list it in English. It does have, imo, an excessive amount of material quoted the removes flow from the article, so maybe the reference to the English is listed, but I missed it when it became tedious, the jumping back and forth into the quoted material. I think it would be easier to read to just use primary material as examples of comments, to supplement a larger portion of rich text written for the Wikipedia audience, imo. This may be simply a matter of personal choice, though--I suspect others don't mind reading it like this, and if it is just style, I don't see that it has to be changed to accomodate any one else's personal preferences. Still, who translated? KP Botany 03:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Is there academic speculation somewhere whether Björkö was inhabited only in the summertime and abandoned for winters? If the tiny island of Björkö was inhabited also in winter, its population was isolated from the mainland every autumn and especially every spring even for a month. Because of this, the medieval royal residence in Adelsö is known to have been only for summer usage. -- Drieakko 10:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I was surprised, when I read about one of the relatives of our first hungarian leader (not king) Árpád. This family member was namely Lachyn. Lachyn was the uncle of Almysh ibn Selkej, father of Arpad. Lachyn went into Russian history later, as I. Rurik. When I checked the page on Wiki about Rurik, I found he was born in Birka. It is very interesting that, in hungarian language birka means - sheep. I searched for another articles about Birka, and i found that sheep grazing is one of the oldest traditions in Birka. I dont know, what it means, maybe nothing, but a town with the name like Birka, and a leader like Rurik (who, as i read here in the discussion page, maybe was finno-igric just like hungarians) you should think about the possible consequences of this informations. Djagfar Tarihi in English
Xxlrutin ( talk) 15:12, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
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In the section of dihram coins, the following is quoted:"There is no deity but Allah alone he has no equal For God Muhammad is the messenger of God".
As I understand, dihram coins were shipped back to Scandinavia by the boatload - many boatloads. Obviously, coins from Muslim lands would often have included the Islamic profession of faith. But in this case, so what? In the context of this article, the inclusion seems to add nothing. By definition, dihrams are 'Muslim' coins. The inclusion of the words is, I suspect, more about contemporary religion than the history of Birka. MarkinBoston ( talk) 16:26, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
![]() | This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 August 2021 and 6 December 2021. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
MooglinRouge,
Purlspearls.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 15:49, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
I find the statement "Generally regarded as Sweden's oldest town" to be fairly odd, as the article itself states that the settlement was established in the 8th century, while the Uppåkra article describes that town as having already been prominent for centuries by that point. Either one of the articles is way off on the dating, or that sentence is. I guess some people might argue that Uppåkra wasn't located in Sweden at the time, but there wasn't really any Sweden for Birka to be located in at the time either. - Alltat ( talk) 13:57, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Hmm. I don't know how or if this should be fitted into the article, but I thought I'd throw it up here since it deserves mention: There's a picture of the 17th century map of Björkö from Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna. It was known at that time that Björkö had had some historical significance, but it was not known that it was Birka. (This is mentioned)
What's a bit interesting is that Suecia also has a map of 'old Sweden' with Birka on it, where the location was erroneously guessed to be somewhere up in the middle of Uppland. Maybe we could get a picture of that detail of the map? It'd be a good illustration of the fact that they didn't know where it was. -- BluePlatypus 07:53, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Why is there no mention that the island is still used for farming and other information about the current structures on the island? I would like to see information about the small church just east of Birka village, as well as all the modern living that occurs on the island.
I remember reading a very convincing Swedish book about Linköping as the most probable Birca, especially based on Linköping's otherwise unexplained high status in early Swedish christianity and missionary work on the Baltic sea. Would anyone remember the name of the book? -- Drieakko 05:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest separation of Birka and Björkö articles. Björkö article would concentrate on excavation results on the island and Birka article to go through the remaining evidence on Birka, which at the end of the day does not too well match with the Björkö location. Articles would be well linked to each other. Kindly tell me your opinions about this split. -- Drieakko 04:56, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Still bothered by Björkö and Birca being handled in the same article. I know this sounds like a sacrilege to some editors, but I'd still like to separate them to clearly have historical data and archaelogical finds separated from popular theories. We could not start the current article with Adam of Bremen's words: "Birca was the main Göta town" which would sound very strange when talking about the Björkö settlement. -- Drieakko 12:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
There seems to be a critical opinion among a group of scholars that dates the earliest phase of the Björkö settlement only in the mid-9th century and its growth to town-size at the end of the 9th century. Finds from the massive graveyards outside the city do not go further back in time than the late 9th century. This questions Björkö's position as the legendary Birka. It does not seem to have been there yet when Ansgar arrived in Birka in 829 and was already destroyed when Adam told about it in the 1060s. Claims about Björkö town being already established in the mid-8th century seem to have originated from the fact that since Ansgar arrived in a full-grown town in 829, it must have been established well before. I have failed to find reliable data dating Björkö town earlier than the mid-9th century. As Björkö town faded away along with eastern trade collapsing around 975, it probably was created when the eastern trade originally took off with the Varangians in control of the Kievan Rus from the 850s onwards. -- Drieakko 18:23, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
The comments posted above regarding the dating of Birka are clearly dated and simply incorrect. Birka is an archaeological site, and while there are historical sources that can give credence to this urban proto-town, they are far from the only source of Birka's existence. Calling Birka "a short-lived ghetto built for foreign traders that flooded into Sweden" is incredibly incorrect, biased and insulting. There was a lot of material culture which would disprove this prepostoros claim, not to mention isotopic analysis of skeletal remains which does not show any data of "slaves", but rather well-nourished and travelled individuals. Birka had an activity period of approximately 750 to 950 CE, and the island of Björkö was inhabited for a period before this. Exactly how long is yet unknown. The town had vast trading connections, which can be supported both trough isotopic analysis and the material culture from the site, and at its largest Birka housed between 500 to 2000 individuals. Unfortunately, there are very few cases of absolute dating for the habitation sites of Birka. Most of the isotopic and radiocarbon data originates from the burial, and this poses a multitude of problems. First of all, the inhumations were all excavated by Hjalmar Stolpe in the 1870's, and while he was an excellent archaeologist for his time, a lot of mistakes were made. Among many, the skeletal material was jumbled, excavational records were not kept, and much of the material has not aged well. New excavations need to be conducted on the burial site of Birka, as less than 10% has thus far been excavated. The habitation sites have recieved less attention and primarily been dated through relative dating methods, such as typology and bead chronology. Even the latest dates places an origin of Birka to around 750. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.212.147.118 ( talk) 20:30, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
The author of the text wants to promote the idea that Birka was far from Uppsala, based on speculations. This is fraudulent.
The wording "not far" in this section:
is compared with this section:
It got to be there to prove something... Is it supposed to prove that Birka might be as far from Uppsala as it was to Finland?
First of all, how can any credibility be put into a section that starts with "we have been told". Secondly, have you seen maps from that time? Here are two maps:
Here we can see two early maps and how they estimate the distances between Sweden and Kvenland. Compare that with the distance between Uppsala and Skara.
Now, we can go on speculating forever about this "not far" part, but I am not one of those people who do that on Wikipedia. Speculations must themself be sources by credibile sources, who interprets the text in the same way.
I ask other contributers to comment and make the necessary changes in the article.
Fred- Chess 21:19, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I share Fred's concerns that the article should not be hijacked towards unsubstantiated speculations. Birka's relationship to Finland cerntainly qualifies as a speculation. On the other hand, I am in favour of quoting primary sources, as long as the quotations are pertinent. When working on Sviatoslav I of Kiev (which was promoted to FAs a few days ago), I consistently defended quoting the Primary Chronicle, but was generally opposed by other contributors and guys from WP:VPP. I posted on WP:RFC a request for uninvolved editors to comment on the issue. -- Ghirla -трёп- 08:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Who translated this? I'm not quite following where all the "primary material" is coming from as it is in English, but the references don't list it in English. It does have, imo, an excessive amount of material quoted the removes flow from the article, so maybe the reference to the English is listed, but I missed it when it became tedious, the jumping back and forth into the quoted material. I think it would be easier to read to just use primary material as examples of comments, to supplement a larger portion of rich text written for the Wikipedia audience, imo. This may be simply a matter of personal choice, though--I suspect others don't mind reading it like this, and if it is just style, I don't see that it has to be changed to accomodate any one else's personal preferences. Still, who translated? KP Botany 03:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Is there academic speculation somewhere whether Björkö was inhabited only in the summertime and abandoned for winters? If the tiny island of Björkö was inhabited also in winter, its population was isolated from the mainland every autumn and especially every spring even for a month. Because of this, the medieval royal residence in Adelsö is known to have been only for summer usage. -- Drieakko 10:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I was surprised, when I read about one of the relatives of our first hungarian leader (not king) Árpád. This family member was namely Lachyn. Lachyn was the uncle of Almysh ibn Selkej, father of Arpad. Lachyn went into Russian history later, as I. Rurik. When I checked the page on Wiki about Rurik, I found he was born in Birka. It is very interesting that, in hungarian language birka means - sheep. I searched for another articles about Birka, and i found that sheep grazing is one of the oldest traditions in Birka. I dont know, what it means, maybe nothing, but a town with the name like Birka, and a leader like Rurik (who, as i read here in the discussion page, maybe was finno-igric just like hungarians) you should think about the possible consequences of this informations. Djagfar Tarihi in English
Xxlrutin ( talk) 15:12, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Birka. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 22:50, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
In the section of dihram coins, the following is quoted:"There is no deity but Allah alone he has no equal For God Muhammad is the messenger of God".
As I understand, dihram coins were shipped back to Scandinavia by the boatload - many boatloads. Obviously, coins from Muslim lands would often have included the Islamic profession of faith. But in this case, so what? In the context of this article, the inclusion seems to add nothing. By definition, dihrams are 'Muslim' coins. The inclusion of the words is, I suspect, more about contemporary religion than the history of Birka. MarkinBoston ( talk) 16:26, 16 February 2022 (UTC)