Norse God Odin Lived in Russia, Explorer Says

[mastodon]

Norse God Odin Lived in Russia, Explorer Says

Reuters - The Viking god Odin may have been a real king who lived in what is now southern Russia 2,000 years ago, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl said in a controversial new book on Thursday.

In "The Hunt for Odin", Heyerdahl says his archaeological digs by the Sea of Azov in Russia backed evidence in 13th century sagas written by Snorre Sturlason that Odin was more than a myth.

Heyerdahl, who won worldwide acclaim with his 1947 voyage across the Pacific on the Kon-Tiki balsa raft, said Odin was a king who lived around Azov before being driven out by the Romans and taking his followers to Sweden.

Ancient metal belt holders, rings and armbands dating from 100-200 AD found in excavations around the mouth of the Don River were almost identical to Viking equivalents found in Gotland, Sweden, some 800 years later, he said.

"Snorre didn't sit down and dream this all up," Heyerdahl told a news conference to launch his latest book with co-author Per Lillestrom. "In ancient times, people treated Gods and Kings as one and the same thing."

Snorre's stories about Odin, viewed as the king of the gods in Norse mythology, portrayed him as fighting battles. By contrast, Snorre treated Thor, the god of thunder, as a mythical hammer-wielding figure riding through the air.

And he said that many of the place names in Snorre's sagas matched the ancient Greek names for places around the Sea of Azov, such as Tanais.

Heyerdahl's digs with a team of Scandinavian and Russian archaeologists uncovered skeletons and ancient metal objects.

"It's obvious that there was some link between the Nordic region and where we dug," he said.

Some Norwegian historians have criticised Heyerdahl's findings as based on insufficient evidence, saying that Odin's name originated from the Germanic name Wotan.

One likened Heyerdahl's quest for Odin to digging for the Garden of Eden.

Heyerdahl, who exploits also included risking his life on the Ra reed vessels crossing the Atlantic to show that the ancient Egyptians could have done so, said he doubted that the book would silence sceptics.

"I don't think so," he said.

[Wendist]

Hello Mastodon

That´s a funny article.

I must say I do not really belive it to be true that we scandinavians originate (at least partly) from a russian tribe. But the article made me remember a discussion we had here some time back about the origin of the "RUS" and how they came from the west to rule Russia.

Maybe there was a russian king living on the island of Gotland and maybe he was invited to Russia to restore order. It would all fit very nicely with the claim that the rus were in fact slavs.

Personally I belive those artefacts were brought to Gotland by scandinavian vikings who had either bought or stolen them in Russia.

Regards Thomas

[Ragnvald]

wendist

Not Scandinavians are Russian tribe, But russians are Scandinavian tribe.
They didn't come from the "west", they came from Scandinavia.
And even this is not absolutely correct. They actually lived in North-Western Russia (around Novgorod) and mixed with Slavs. This facts are proved long time ago, by old Russian and Scandinavian writings, and archeological research shows not only similarity but identity of things they used.
There are also great lingustic similarity, like Russian "gorod, garad, grad" for city, and modern Swedish "garad" for village. Also there are a lot of similar peoples names, like Lena, Ludmila, Halla, etc.

My advice to you is same as I gave somebody else recently:
Read some books before hitting keybord!

[Ragnvald]

As well, just for fun, Odin in russian means One, or The One?

[Wendist]

Hello Ragnvald

I am a swede myself and I would not mind at all if your defenition of russian history was true but I do belive that some russians would disagree with you.

Are you interested in russian history from this time? Then I would like to ask you a favour. Would you please use the link below and read the thread. It is a very long thread but it is, in my opinion, the best thread on russian early history you can find on this site. I would appreciate your opinion very much.

http://www.russia.com/forums/showthr...3?threadid=593

Regards Thomas

[Ragnvald]

Hi Wendist

My apologies first for that reference to books.
You, obviously, did some reading.
Though, you agree, that you are amateur in history.
What got me that you have called Scandinavians "a russian tribe".

It was a good and interesting discussion on the thread you gave me. I really don't have time for such things now.
I read a lot of such stuff until they started to repeat all over.

Now I read with interest about archaelogical discoveries in north-western Russia, if I get hands on such material.

Just couple of remarks, if you are interested.

Nothing happens overnight in history. Viking or Varangians or Rurik didn't came all of a sudden to Kiev, and this what archaelogy suggests. They actually lived and cooperated long before Kiev. There was Novgorod and Polotsk long before Kiev.
Polotsk mentioned as important city in 6th century in Scandinavian sagas.
Moscovia was indeed a melting pot of russians (Ruses), Slavs and Finno-Ugriks.
Ukraine indeed has a lot of rights to be called Land of the Rus.

There were many attempts to unite Russian lands under one rule.
People rarely mention Greate Duchy of Lithuania and Rus. The last word often dropped.
That state unhooked Ukraine from Mongol yoke, Tver and Ryazan were in, and Novgorod sought its help to defend against Moscow. State language was Belorusian and religion was Orthodox. It was never conqured my Mongols.

Well, you could argue a lot about details, but fact is that Belarus, Ukraine and Russia are lands of Rus. Russia happened to be the only carrier of that name. It happens in history. Brits are long gone though the place is called Great Britain.
Like there are no Macedonians in Macedonia, no Egyptians in Egypt, no Lithuanians in Lithuania. There are a fair bit of Russians in Russia, though.

[Wendist]

Hello Ragnvald

I do not think that we stand to far from each other on this.

"I must say I do not really belive it to be true that we scandinavians originate (at least partly) from a russian tribe."

This is a quote from my first post. Please note that I said" I do NOT really belive". This was said by me to comment on the norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl´s claim that a russian tribe might have moved to Gotland.

So basically I agree with you Ragnvald.

"Nothing happens overnight in history. Viking or Varangians or Rurik didn't came all of a sudden to Kiev,"

This is very true.The problem is to verify what happened, when it happened and for what reason. The Vikings left very little written evidence behind which means that we have to rely almost entirely on russian sources. There is no reason to belive that russian sources of the time is any less reliable than other countries but it is always difficult to find out the truth if you have only one side of the story and we can never be certain of the objectivity of the material available.

In this situation archeology of course becomes extremely important. It is the only way for us to find "new" information, information that can be used to verify or challenge the written sources already available. Naturally this new information has to be evaluated and interpretated and it is here that I think that Thor Heyerdahl perhaps got a bit carried away.

Regards Thomas