There is today a re-emerging pan-Nor’atlantic identity with a strong Nordic character, although I would like it to conflate the not less important Irish and Gaelic components too. And I would like you not to forget to consider yourselves worldly Nor’atlantians.
But, of course, there is the historical foundation, and I want to share with you my recent acquisition of this nice book I got in my Peking bookshop which still provides a decent selection of foreign books. On the photo above you can see a copper pin and a spindle whorl, both from the 11th century, both found in the Scandinavian post at L’Anse aux Meadous (Newfoundland, Canada), the first one very likely to have been made in Ireland or western Britain, the second one of a kind also attested in Greenland at that time.
The book shows a beautiful collection of items, including, as those two ones, many other fascinating archaeological clues of the wide contacts, voyages and commercial exchanges happening roughly through the 8th to the 11th centuries all across the Nor’atlantic, the Baltic, Scandinavia ad far beyond.
The book: Steve Ashby & Alison Leonard, Pocket Museum: Vikings, 2018 Quarto Publishing plc (firstly published in 2018 by Thames & Hudson Ltd, London).
