Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:24, 9 September 2020

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Truso" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message) The article's lead section may need to be rewritten. Please help improve the lead and read the lead layout guide. (February 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Truso

Shown within Poland
Location	Northern Poland
Region	Vistula Lagoon, Pomerania
Coordinates	54°04′00″N 19°27′00″E / 54.066667°N 19.45°E / 54.066667; 19.45

Truso was a Medieval Old Prussian town and trading center at the banks of the Nogat delta branch of the Vistula River, close to a bay (the modern Drużno lake), where it emptied into the shallow and brackish Vistula Lagoon. This sizeable lagoon is separated from the Gdańsk Bay by the Vistula Spit at the southern Baltic Sea coast. In the 9th century, the merchant Wulfstan of Hedeby travelled to Truso in the service of the English King Alfred the Great and recorded his account of the place at a centrally located on the Amber Road, that attracted merchants from central and southern Europe, who were connected to the markets in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

The account of the voyage to the town of Truso in the land of the Pruzzens before the year 890 by Wulfstan of Hedeby has been included in Alfred the Great's translation of Orosius' Histories. In the words of Marija Gimbutas, "the name of the town is the earliest known historically in the Baltic Sea area".

History

Truso was situated in a central location upon the Eastern European trade routes, which led from Birka in Sweden via Visby on the island of Gotland towards the southern Baltic Sea shore, where in the 13th-century the Hanseatic city of Elbing (since 1945 Elbląg) was established. From there, trade continued further south to Carnuntum in the Alps along a route called the Amber Road. These ancient roads led further south-west and south-east to the Black Sea and eventually to North Africa and Central Asia. "For Old Prussia, Truso played the same role as Haithabu (Hedeby) for north-western Germany or Slavic Vineta for Pomerania", Gimbutas has observed.

East–western trade routes lead from Truso and Wiskiauten (a rival trading centre in Old Prussia, at the south-western corner of the Courish Lagoon), along the Baltic Sea to Jutland and from there up the Slien inlet to Haithabu (Hedeby), the large trading center in Jutland. This town, located close to the modern city of Schleswig in Schleswig-Holstein, was centrally located and could be reached from all four directions over land as well as from the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.

Around the year 890, Wulfstan of Hedeby embarked on a seven-day journey from Hedeby to Truso at the behest of king Alfred the Great. He names the lands and the coasts he passes as the ship was running under sail all the way. Weonodland was on his right and Langland, Laeland, Falster and Sconey on his left, all land that is subject to Denmark.

Wulfstan resumes - Then on our left we had the land of the Burgundians, who have a king to themselves. Then, after the land of the Burgundians, we had on our left the lands that have been called from the earliest times Blekingey, and Meore, and Eowland, and Gotland, all which territory is subject to the Sweons; and Weonodland (the land of the Wends) was all the way on our right, as far as the Vistula-estuary.

One possible reason for this expedition was because Alfred needed aid in his defense against the Danes or Vikings, who had taken over most of England. The reasons for this journey are fundamentally unclear, since Truso was at the time little more than a trading center, and Alfred the Great, the West Saxon ruler, already kept in close contact with the continental Saxons and the Franks.

Archeology

First attempts at finding the exact location of the town date back to the early sixteenth century. Based on Prussian archaeological finds from 1897 and excavations which began in the 1920s, archaeologists located Truso near Elbing (since 1945 Janów Pomorski near Elbląg). Found artifacts, dating from the 7th to 12th century, were stored in the Elbing Museum, now the Elbląg Museum. In the 1980s, the Polish archaeologist Marek Jagodziński had resumed excavations and cleared a site of circa 20 hectare, in which a series of structures had burnt down around the year 1,000 AD.

The Scandinavian influence on these settlements and artefacts is particularly obvious and confirms Viking expansion of settlement activity to Courland and Livland. As early as the 8th century, the first incursions of North Germanic groups took place, which lead to the founding of the Grobin/Seeburg settlement near Liepája. Archbishop Rimbert of Bremen recorded the immigration of a group under the Sveakönig Olaf during the 9th century.

Gwyn Jones notes that "no true town has been found and excavated" and that the identification of the site in Elbląg with Truso is based on "finds of Norse weapons" and the presence of "a large Viking Age cemetery" nearby, According to Mateusz Bogucki "by now, there is no doubt that the settlement really is Wulfstan's Truso" The Elbląg Museum brochure: Truso- A Discovered Legend, by Marek F. Jagodziński, describes a large number of buildings found during the recent excavations, with burnt remains of posts suggesting buildings of c. 5 x 10 m and long houses of about 6 x 21 m.

Mateusz Bogucki states in the book "Coin finds in the Viking Age Emporium Truso" (Warsaw 2007, page 83) about ...the end of Truso as a port of trade...a strong political power, probably of Piast origin...sent warriors to try to take control...destroyed the town.

References

1. ^ Klaus Fehn, Dietrich Denecke, Hans-Rudolf Egli, Eike Gringmuth-Dallmer, Franz Irsigler, Winfried Schenk. "Siedlungsforschung. Archäologie – Geschichte – Geographie 22, 2004" (PDF). Siedlungsforschung Bonn. Retrieved September 8, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. ^ Marija Gimbutas; Alseikaitė (1963). The Balts. Praeger.
3. J. M. de Navarro (1925). "Prehistoric Routes between Northern Europe and Italy Defined by the Amber Trade". The Geographical Journal. 66 (6). Jstor: 481–503. doi:10.2307/1783003. JSTOR 1783003.
4. Anna J. Mukherjee. "The Qatna lion: scientific confirmation of Baltic amber in late Bronze Age Syria" (PDF). Uni Heidelberg. Retrieved September 8, 2020.
5. ^ Richard 1552?-1616 Hakluyt; King of England 849-899 Alfred (25 August 2016). The Discovery of Muscovy, from the Collections of Richard Hakluyt. with the Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan from King Alfred's Orosius. BiblioBazaar. ISBN 978-1-361-90940-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
6. ^ Marek F. Jagodziński. "Truso between Weonodland and Witland". Academia. Retrieved September 8, 2020.
7. Cite error: The named reference steu was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
8. ^ Bogucki, Mateusz (2004). "Viking age trade ports in Poland". Estonian Journal of Archaeology. 8 (2): 100–127.
9. Jones, Gwyn. A History of the Vikings. Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-19-280134-1. Page 244.

External links

• The Project Gutenberg Etext of Discovery of Muscovy - The complete texts translated to modern English
• Historia de los Gotlandeses (Guta saga)

v t e Norse people
Scandinavia History
History	Nordic Stone Age Nordic Bronze Age Pre-Roman Iron Age Roman Iron Age Germanic Iron Age Migration Period Viking Age Old Norse religion Germanic paganism Norse mythology Christianization
Expansion	Norse–Gaels Normans Garðaríki Exploration of the Americas Trade route Viking Trade Routes Varangian Trade Routes Volga Trade Route
Paganism and mythology	Gods Æsir Vanir Jötunn Sigurd Sigmund Völundr Vættir Elves Light elves Dark elves Dvergr Einherjar Fenrir Hel (being) Dís Norns Valkyries Jörmungandr Ask and Embla
Cosmology	Ásgarðr Vanaheimr Miðgarðr Vígríðr Bifröst Fólkvangr Ginnungagap Helheim Múspellsheimr Niflheimr Mímisbrunnr Hvergelmir Urðarbrunnr Yggdrasill Valhalla Jötunheimr
Rituals and worship	Blót Seiðr Norse funeral Yule Walpurgis Night Midsummer Hörgr Vé Gothi Calendar Runic magic Völva Galdr Death in Norse paganism
Society	Law Clans Jarl Thegn Thrall Félag Thing Mead hall Holmgang Old Norse Runes Runemaster Nithing pole Skalds Longships Nīþ Ergi Vikings Berserkers Emporium
Events	Æsir–Vanir War Fimbulwinter Ragnarök Wild Hunt
Sources	Poetic Edda Prose Edda Tyrfing Cycle Völsung Cycle Saga Runestones
Settlements	Alaborg Aldeigja Arkona Bardy-Świelubie Birka Dierkow Gnezdovo Grobin Hedeby Holmgard Jomsborg Kaup Kaupang Köpingsvik Lindholm Menzlin Ralswiek Reric Ribe Sarskoye Sigtuna Timerevo Truso Vanaja Wolin
WikiProject Norse history and culture

• Archaeological sites in Poland
• Former populated places in Eastern Europe
• Elbląg