(Go on! Tell him to his face!)
The scientific world was rocked for, oh, eight or nine minutes in 2017 when a “scholar” claimed that a lot of vikings were Muslims. It was a ridiculously flimsy argument that lost no time getting blown out of the water.
The new pseudo scientific method: First announce what you mean to discover, then announce that you’ve discovered it. Forget those intervening steps.
That’s the theme of my Newswithviews piece today, coming right up.
I run this post now and then because it’s such a perfect example of the kind of wishful thinking and sheer silliness that has permeated “science” in our time.
Yowsah, yowsah, the Feminist Golden Age! Without a single inscription to back it up. We don’t need no stinkin’ inscriptions–we’re Woke archaeologists! This is almost as good as the short-lived “discovery” of Muslim Vikings. And the “gay caveman.” Who ever dreamed the remote past could be so obliging?
Once you’re set free from evidence, the sky’s the limit.
Hmmm… How long did that “Muslim vikings” fad last? Half an hour, maybe?
To correct two more misconceptions about the vikings:
*The word “viking” refers to a profession, not a nationality. Anyone could “go a-viking” or be a viking. Today we would call that profession armed robbery or brigandage.
*Vikings never wore horned helmets. Centuries earlier, some of the Gauls did. But Vikings did not.
Trust me. I’m an official and bona fide expert on the vikings. You could look it up.
Historical Note: Movies to the contrary, only Muslim Vikings wore horned helmets.
Back on Oct. 13 we reported the “staggering” finding that there were Muslim grave goods in a Viking burial, indicating that the Vikings were markedly influenced by Islam, yatta-yatta blah-blah (see “Scholar (LOL) Thinks Vikings May Have Been Muslims). Clue: The, ahem, scholar who announced this works for the University of Uppsala in Sweden. That’s the country whose ruling class hates their own history and is eager to hand it over, lock, stock, and barrel, to invading Muslims. So turning Vikings into Muslims would serve a political purpose.
Now an expert in Islamic art and archeology has blown those “findings” to smithereens (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/allah-viking-burial-fabrics-false-kufic-inscription-clothes-name-woven-myth-islam-uppsala-sweden-a8003881.html), on two counts. A) The supposed “Arabic inscription” woven into the ancient textiles does not spell “Allah,” but actually spells nothing at all. B) Even if it were a genuine Arabic script, that type of script did not exist until some 500 years after those particular Vikings were supposedly buried with it. [ thanks to ECAW’sblog for the news tip.]
Aw, what does she know! We want Muslim Vikings! That way we’re not giving our country away; we’re giving it back.
Aren’t you glad there ain’t no politics in Science?
So they found some silken goods in Viking Age burials (9th-10th centuries) in Sweden, and some of these pieces had the name “Allah” woven into them in Arabic writing–so that must mean the Vikings were, well… Muslims (http://metro.co.uk/2017/10/12/were-vikings-muslim-new-research-finds-allah-woven-into-burial-clothes-6995713/). At least, so says a scholar who may have watched The Thirteenth Warrior a few more times than is good for her.
And just to state my bona fides, my specialty in college was the history of the Viking Age. So I know hooey when I see it, and this is hooey. It’s just part of academic leftids’ infatuation with Islam. I knew my education would come in handy someday, if I only waited long enough.
Some of the clothes also have little swastikas woven into them. If we keep looking into ancient Swedish graves, will we find Martin Bormann?
If ever any people left behind an abundant and reliable written record, it was the Scandinavians of the Viking Age. I mean, they wrote down everything! And somehow not a single mention of any “Muslim vikings” appears in any of the sagas, poems, histories, Eddas, or in the copious writings of the great 13th-century Icelandic historian, Snorri Sturlusson. That this curious cultural phenomenon should have eluded Snorri is a preposterous idea.
But when it comes to academics swooning over Islam, it’s “Preposterous ‘R’ Us.” This scholar, for example, speculates on the Scandinavian peoples of the Viking Age picking up “Islamic ideas such as eternal life in paradise after death.” Apparently this ignoramus never heard of Valhalla, never read Beowulf, and has picked up a very bad habit, so prevalent among self-anointed scholars nowadays, of talking through her hat.
The fact is, because the Vikings themselves sailed over as much of the world as they could, stuff from every place you could think of wound up in their possession–by looting, trading, or buying. Silk from the East was a luxury item that always sold well in the West. A silken blouse woven in Persia would have made a nice anniversary present for Helga in Uppsala.
But by now I have probably told you more than you wanted to know.