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Tadmekka, a town at the southern edge of the Sahara desert, has produced good evidence for making gold coins in the ninth–tenth century AD, the first concrete proof of coinage in pre-colonial West Africa. These were produced by melting gold dust or nuggets in ceramic moulds, similar to those used for the first pellet-like coinage of the European Iron Age. The authors suggest these coins were not political statements, but were probably blank and intended to facilitate the busy early Islamic caravan trade to destinations north, south or east. On arrival at the Mediterranean coast, these blank pieces would have been melted down or converted into inscribed coins by the local authorities.

Not the least of the unusual revelations that have come from the wonderfully preserved ninth-century Norwegian ship burials at Oseberg and Gokstad, is the fact that both had been later broken into—by interlopers who defaced the ship, damaged the grave goods and pulled out and dispersed the bones of the deceased. These ‘mound-breakers’ helpfully left spades and stretchers in place, and through the application of some highly ingenious dendrochronology our authors have been able to date the break-ins with some precision. Mound-breaking, it seems, took place during the domination of Norway by Harald Bluetooth in the tenth century as part of an extensive campaign which included subduing local monuments as well as converting Scandinavians to Christianity. The old mounds retained such power in the landscape that it was worth desecrating them and disinterring their occupants a century after their burial.

The famous lakeside sites of Switzerland have long been known for their pile dwellings and their massive quantities of Late Bronze Age metalwork. On the most recent excavations, the bronzes have been mapped in situ, allowing comparison with assemblages from dryland sites and rivers, as well as providing a context for the nineteenth-century collections. The pile dwellings emerge as special places where depositions of selected bronze objects in groups or as single discards, comparable to those usually found in dryland deposits or in rivers, accumulated in the shallow water during a unique 250-year spell of ritual practice.

The fragment “Cura pastoralis” is the oldest manuscript fragment in Slovenia and is kept in the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia under the file number AS 1073, II–1r. It consists of one bifolium. One side of it is very badly damaged, as the fragment was once used for the binding of a book that served as the marriage register of the town of Trbovlje between 1669 and 1704. The register is still kept in the Diocesan Archives of Maribor. The bifolium is cataloged as a fragment of a ninth-century manuscript containing the “Cura pastoralis” of Gregory the Great. After a thorough examination, however, it turned out to be part of a work by Paterius of Brescia, Gregory the Great’s first secretary, which may have seen the light of day in the Freising scriptorium. There are some physical and content-related similarities between the fragment and the oldest complete manuscript in Slovenia, the Ecloga of Lathcen, which was written in the same period, namely at the end of the first half of the ninth century.

The authors show that the principal correlates of feasting in Viking Age Iceland were beef and barley, while feasting itself is here the primary instrument of social action. Documentary references, ethnographic analogies, archaeological excavation and biological analyses are woven together to present an exemplary procedure for the recognition of feasting more widely.

Abstract This article discusses the commercial, socio-economic and legal dynamics of slave trading in Egypt on the basis of papyri from the AH third-fourth/ninth-tenth centuries CE. Particular focus is given to the activities of slavers, the networks of professional slave traders, the socio-economics of slave acquisition, and commercial dynamics at slave markets. Much of the discussion draws on the contents of five contemporary papyrus documents that are presented, translated and annotated in the appendix.

U članku se u jedinstvenu likovno-morfološku cjelinu okupljaju reljefi pronađeni u Galovcu, Biogradu i Zadru, ali i u Novalji na otoku Pagu. Prepoznati su kao produkti iste klesarske radionice za koju se, po njezinim najkvalitetnijim i najreprezentativnijim djelima pronađenima u zadarskoj katedrali, predlaže naziv Radionica plutejâ zadarske katedrale. Okupljena grupa reljefa pokazuje osobine rane predromaničke skulpture, a to se podjednako iščitava iz načina njihove izvedbe (meka modelacija, rahlije postavljeni motivi), kao i u prevladavajućoj motivici ranokršćanske provenijencije. Uzimajući u obzir veličinu raspravljanih reljefa i lokalitete na kojima su pronalaženi, autor dolazi do zaključka da se radi o dijelovima liturgijskih instalacija većih ranokršćanskih crkava koje su obnovljene u kasnome 8. ili ranom 9. stoljeću.

Samarra, built and abandoned during the ninth century, can claim to be the largest archaeological site in the world. Here, Alastair Northedge offers a brief account of what is known about it, and begins by placing it in the context of the world’s most famous historic cities.

عرض المقال دولة تاهرت الشمال إفريقية وعلاقتها مع السودان الغربي في نهاية القرن الثامن وإلى القرن التاسع الميلادي. أشار المقال إلى الأهمية التي قدمتها الكتب القديمة لمذهب الأباضية الإسلامي لتاريخ علاقات شمال إفريقيا مع السودان الغربي والأوسط لماضي هذه البلدان الأخيرة. وأظهر البحث أن الجيش العباسي عندما وضع النهاية لسيطرة الإباضية على القيروان (761/762م) وضغط على أتباعهم البربر لمغادرة شمال ووسط تونس الحالية والانسحاب لفترة من جنوب هذا البلد وكذلك طرابلس، ذهب عبد الرحمن بن رستم حاكم القيروان للإمام الإباضي أبو الخطاب المعافري الفار من الجنود العباسيين ليبحث عن ملجأ في غرب الجزائر الحالية. وأوضح البحث أنه من بداية حكم الإمام الأول بين (776/777م) و(784/785م) أصبحت تاهرت مركز سياسي واقتصادي هام وسوق ضخم، الذي يجذب ليس فقط الكثير من البربر الإباضيين لشمال إفريقيا كلها أو بقايا السكان القدامى الرومان المسيحيين لكن كذلك التجار المسلمين في القيروان، البصرة والكوفة. واختتم المقال ذاكراً أن التجار المسلمين لم يكونوا الأوائل الذين وصلوا إلى السودان الغربي منذ فتح العرب للمغرب، فيمكن القول إن تجار تاهرت الذين وصلوا إلى السودان الغربي في 780م سبقوا إلى أسواق غانا، فاو، ومدن أخرى من هذا البلد من طرف تجار مسلمين جاءوا من مدينة لسجلماسة الصفرية ومن مدن زيز ودرعة (مجاورة لسجلماسة والتي اضمحلت قبل التطور التجاري لهذه الأخيرة) أو عن طريق التجار البربر الذين أصلهم من طاركالا عاصمة السوس الأقصى (في جنوب المغرب الأقصى). كُتب هذا المستخلص من قِبل دار المنظومة 2018