Dirhams for Slaves. Dirham hoards from Northern Europe, trade in Slavic slaves, and the emergence of Medieval Europe.

Perhaps as many as one million dirhams, Islamic silver coins, have been found in hoards across Northern Europe. They travelled thousands of kilometres from the mints of Iraq and Central Asia to the Baltic island of Gotland, other lands around the Baltic and further on to England in the 9th and 10th centuries AD, when long-distance land communications are thought to have been virtually non-existent. The objective of this project is to explain and to evaluate the historical role of this unprecedented flow of silver.

It has so far received little scholarly attention. Even though it is accepted that dirham hoards reflect commercial exchanges between the Islamic world and non-Christian Europe in the 9th and 10th centuries, neither their mechanisms nor their historical significance have been subjected to scrutiny. The project will discuss whether Slavic slaves, rather than furs or forest produce, were the primary commodity sold in return for dirhams. Accounts of Arab geographers and travellers, comparative evidence of other long-distance slave trade systems and the analysis of the silver hoards will allow us to retrace the complex network of suppliers, intermediaries and consumers. We believe that it will be possible to detect archaeological traces, such as abrupt depopulation, that reflect the procurement of slaves.

It is currently unknown why this slave trade system drew to a halt. The answer, we think, will come from a study of the 11th-century trade between Scandinavia and the Slavic lands, evidenced by Anglo-Saxon and German coins which replaced dirhams in the Northern hoards. Does this reflect merely a change in the geography of the demand for slaves? Does it follow that Western European economies of the 11th century relied more heavily than usually thought on slave labour? If yes, the conceptual framework for the emergence of feudalism will need to be reconsidered.

Our study of this slave trade system will require us to address some major gaps in current scholarship. Firstly, we will investigate why the majority of coins hoarded in the Northern Lands was produced in Central Asia by Samanid emirs. Despite its pivotal role in the trade with the North, the Samanid dynasty has never been studied in its own right. We will produce the first scholarly monograph of this dynasty, which will clarify to what extent the Samanids were able to regulate the flow of dirhams to the Northern Lands. We will also explore their role in the collapse of the trade system after ca 950.

Secondly, a significant group of coins known from the Northern hoards has so far almost entirely escaped scholarly attention. These are known as dirham imitations. They represent an untapped historical source of significant potential, but also unusual complexity. They were probably issued by political powers controlling the principal ports of trade, such as the Khazars or the Volga Bulgars; the rationale for their production remains, however, unknown. We think that they hold the key to understanding the economic mechanisms of the slave trade. We will offer, for the first time, a catalogue of their principal types.

Finally, we will reassess the phenomenon of silver hoarding in Northern Europe. A comparative study of the archaeological contexts of hoards in Sweden, Russia and Poland, based on new research in these countries, will detect patterns of hoarding that will, in turn, clarify the reasons for hoarding and for the non-retrieval of the hoards.

These studies will result in a multifaceted picture of the trade system in Slavic slaves. Their implications will go beyond shedding light on an episode of medieval history. The project will substantially contribute to the study of the still neglected phenomenon of European medieval slavery. We will also test our hypothesis that the wealth derived from the sale of Slavic slaves enabled state formation in Northern Europe. If proved, it will offer a new perspective on the formative period of European history.

The main themes of the project - slave trade, silver hoards, early European contacts with the Islamic world, the emergence of the European states - are likely to stimulate the interest of the wider public, both in the UK and abroad, in Europe and in the Islamic world. They will be relevant to students and teachers at all levels of education, as well as to the general public interested in history in a number of European countries.

We see the main impact of our project in reshaping, in the long run, some of the fundamental assumptions of our vision of the European Middle Ages. Twenty years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, very few attempts have been made to present an integrated history of the European continent and to assess mutual influences of the post-Roman world and the remaining part of the continent. The recent ground-breaking study of the origins of the European economy by Michael McCormick - who almost entirely disregarded Scandinavia and the Slavic lands - illustrates the difficulty involved in overcoming this divide. By showing the implications of the large-scale trade in Slavic slaves and the influence of the Islamic world on the formation of states in Northern Europe, this project will promote a more inclusive picture of European history and, as a result, significantly deepen our historical knowledge. It is also likely to elicit reflection on broader topics rooted in this formative period of European history, such as the forging of national identities.

This project will build upon and further stimulate the appetite for the early Middle Ages, and the Viking Age in particular. A major exhibition forthcoming in the British Museum and the fundraising campaigns, recent and planned, for the acquisition of recently discovered Viking-age hoards (Vale of York, Furness and Silverdale) by public museums attest to the continuous interest of the British public for this period. It is significant that, although all the three mentioned hoards contain Islamic dirhams, their presence did not provoke any comments. Our project will provide a coherent explanation for their presence in the British Isles and raise awareness of the complexity of cultural influences that shaped this country. We will also highlight the contribution of the Islamic world to early European history.

We will draw attention to urgent issues connected with the preservation of cultural heritage. Hoards of silver coins are an attractive target for amateur metal detecting. We will raise awareness of the imminent risk of losing unique information on our past by illustrating how contextualized information on dirham hoards can contribute to our knowledge. We will inform the discussions in Central and Eastern European countries aiming at implementing coherent policies towards metal detecting. We will voice our opinion that schemes modelled on the English Portable Antiquities Scheme would greatly contribute to the preservation of the European cultural heritage.

We will communicate the results of our research by means of an exhibition staged in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (described in the Pathways to Impact section). The project's website will allow the public to access project materials such as summaries of the workstreams, maps of hoards and photographs of coins, which can be used in courses on the Viking Age and on the Islamic world in schools and universities.

Our project will strengthen the reputation of British academia, and in particular of the University of Oxford, as the leading research centre with transformational potential in human sciences. The project's international dimension, involving cooperation with Central and Eastern European consultants, will reinforce Oxford's position as a leading forum for sharing ideas in Europe. At a more general level, the project will strengthen international links between the UK and Central and Eastern European countries, where the project is particularly likely to appeal to a wide audience.