Eastern Asia

If Ibn Khurradādhbih was correct about the Rus’ travels to Sindh, India and China – with caveats as to where those places were in his mind – then we must take seriously the idea of active Norse contacts with eastern Asia. That we should do so is supported by a growing body of archaeological work on finds from these regions that have been recovered from sites in Scandinavia, and also material from the Norse world found in the east. This was the commodities trade connecting the Baltic – via western Asia and the Steppe – with the polities of Tang and Khitan in what is now China, the khaganate of the Uyghurs that had its capital in modern Mongolia, and even the Baekje, Goguryeo and Silla states on the Korean peninsula, and the power bases of Asuka and Nara in Japan. The period from the fifth to the tenth centuries was as turbulent and transformative in these regions as it was in Scandinavia, with a religious transition to Buddhism that paralleled the Christianisation of the European North – all with remarkably similar manifestations in the archaeology. What did these contacts really look like? The Norse experience in eastern Asia is one of WIVA’s primary areas of research focus.