Megalithic shipping and trade routes

[TisILeclerc]

Wiki has Tarbert as coming from the gaelic Tarbeart.

The name Tarbert is the anglicised form of the Gaelic word tairbeart. It is composed of tar "across" and a form of the verb beir "carry" and literally translates as "across-carrying". This refers to the narrowest strip of land between two bodies of water over which goods or entire boats can be carried (portage). In past times cargoes were discharged from vessels berthed in one loch, hauled over the isthmus to the other loch, loaded onto vessels berthed there and shipped onward, allowing seafarers to avoid the sail around the Mull of Kintyre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarbert,_Argyll_and_Bute

But ships were also carried across and 'tar' is a shortened version of 'tarraing' which means to pull. The 'bert' bit is 'beart' which normally means a machine or a weaving frame. Something with ropes of some sort. So if we put the two elements together we could have a set up with ropes for hauling ships from one side to the other. This is something the Vikings did to perfection even getting into Loch Lomond.

Dwelly has:

tairbeart /tɛrʲɛbəRʃd/
boir. gin. -beirt, iol. -an
isthmus, portage site

http://faclair.com/

Beart also refers to wealth.

There's a video on youtube where some Norwegians build a replica longboat and sail to Orkney. They then test out the idea that the ships were carried across the land to the water on the other side. They have great difficulty especially with the friction of the boat on the ground or whatever they are supporting it on. Until a local Orcadian tells them that the old fisherman used fish oil to lubricate it. So they do this and I think they succeeded.

[Mick Harper]

This all feeds into my keel mania. I don't regard Viking longboats as at all suitable for sea voyages (no keel, narrow girth, low freeboard) but they are suitable for hauling across land. We have demonstrated elsewhere that no Viking raid ever took place, so longboats aren't much cop for those either.

Even my friends disagree with me about this such is the mandala-like status of these wretched things. The horns are gone, surely the longboats can join them in Valhalla. Valhalla doesn't exist either ... mmm ... a double negative ...

[TisILeclerc]

How did they cross the North Sea and the Atlantic, not to mention the Irish Sea and the Med if their longboats weren't seaworthy?

Here's a modern replica that made it to New York recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkMVsNEwvX0

And here's another one that made it to Dublin. And we do agree that Dublin was founded by the Vikings. Don't we ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8jhnrNHk3g

As for what they were doing here if they weren't robbing monasteries what were they doing, apart from selling locally captured slaves to North Africa and Turkey?

But then there is one instance, among many, where a monk and his mates had to leave his monastery because of Vikings.

It is likely that the broch was still the centre of the Applecross community when St Maelrubha and his Christian followers arrived in 673AD. Rather than found his monastery on the fertile lands around the broch, Maelrubha settled on the north side of the river. After the monastery had been sacked by Norse raiders in around 800AD, the lay abbot of Applecross, who administered the lands on behalf of the Church, probably lived at the broch, even though by then it was by then in a semi-ruinous state.

http://www.applecrossarchaeology.org/sample-page/broch/

And here is Tony and his merry men and ladies digging the broch up for Time Team. It was part of a huge network of brochs all along the coast of the mainland and islands. There is evidence of iron smelting at it as well.

The title given to it on youtube is wrong. The title refers to another video about southern softies, for some reason the two titles got mixed up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfJZAEBNcGQ

On top of that barges cross the north sea on a regular basis sailing down the Rhine to ports in Britain and back again. I know because I've been aboard several in the past.

There's also a couple who sailed their narrowboat from England across the channel against all the odds and advice not to do it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -boat.html

http://www.btx.co.uk/transportnews2.html





http://www.narrowdog.com/

[Mick Harper]

How did they cross the North Sea and the Atlantic, not to mention the Irish Sea and the Med if their longboats weren't seaworthy?

In ordinary boats I expect, same as everybody else.

Here's a modern replica that made it to New York recently.

These reconstructions are always ridiculous. Like the people who do it in a bath for charity.

And here's another one that made it to Dublin. And we do agree that Dublin was founded by the Vikings. Don't we ?

We most certainly do not.

As for what they were doing here if they weren't robbing monasteries what were they doing,

Let's try to sort out your muddled thinking. There can never be anything of worth in a monastery since they are defenceless to local miscreants never mind people who have sailed a thousand miles to steal ... wait for it ... a gospel book with some tiny semi-precious stones on it. Give me a break.

apart from selling locally captured slaves to North Africa and Turkey?

Anyone who thinks it is worth sailing a thousand miles. pick up some slaves, sail another thousand miles, sell the slaves and then sail two thousand miles home again should not give up his day-job to go a-slaving.

But then there is one instance, among many, where a monk and his mates had to leave his monastery because of Vikings.

I will pass over this in awed silence.

[TisILeclerc]

Historical records point to examples of this slave trade taking place – such as a 10th century biography of St.Nian tells the story of 200 churchmen who were captured by the Vikings and taken to the slave markets in Venice. Valente writes, “religious men were being captured and were being sold through centers where castration was being practiced regularly, and records exist of large numbers of young men being sold specifically as eunuchs, suggesting that some slaves may have been taken for precisely that purpose – feeding the eastern markets for young, educated castrates.”

The Byzantine and Abbasid empires were the destinations for these castrated slaves – where there was great demand for them. With the creation of the caliph’s harem in Baghdad, there was “a massive need for trustworthy guards, a need that was filled by eunuchs.” These men would be servants to the women children in the harem, even acting as teachers. They would soon start filling other roles in the bureaucracy, or work in the palaces of regional officials. “In the end,” Valante writes, “the expanding uses for slaves during the time of the early Abbasids, including the need for large numbers of enslaved eunuchs, drove much of the slave trade around the Mediterranean basin. The Viking raids, which began barely a generation after the Abbasid dynasty seized the Caliphate, met part of that need.”

http://www.medievalists.net/2013/07/the ... -the-east/


There are plenty of websites that disagree. The one above is an academic site.

But, if you don't like academics, they know nowt, here's an African site discussing slavery. And no, not Europeans taking African slave, but Vikings and Arabs co-operating. As you will probably disagree the Barbary Pirates were slave traders who raided Europe and got as far as Iceland in their quests for slaves. They were finally stopped by the Americans during the Napoleonic wars because they had been targetting American ships. An unwise move as ever.

Feel free to disagree. I'm not sure where all these Viking ocean going liners peacefully sailing about with enormous keels to keep them upright went to. They do tend to find plenty of the other kind though.

Viking slave-trade has been thoroughly condemned, but little has been said of the role, Islam played, in seducing the Vikings into this abhorrent profession. There is no excuse for the crime the Vikings had committed. It is also impossible to disconnect Islam from the Viking slave-trade, because the supply was absolutely meant for meeting Islamic world’s unceasing demand for the prized white slaves.

https://secularafrican.wordpress.com/20 ... ve-trades/

I know Magnus Magnusson brought our attention to cuddly Vikings who wouldn't harm a fly. But he's in Valhalla drinking and joking with his ancestors and even official Scandinavian sites are admitting the truth of the Viking slave trade. You can find them yourself I'm sure.

[Mick Harper]

There are plenty of websites that disagree. The one above is an academic site.

Are you being satirical?

But, if you don't like academics, they know nowt, here's an African site discussing slavery. And no, not Europeans taking African slave, but Vikings and Arabs co-operating.

I am congenitally ill-disposed to Africans discussing slavery.

As you will probably disagree the Barbary Pirates were slave traders who raided Europe and got as far as Iceland in their quests for slaves.

No, this is all good history. I did not know about Iceland though. Generally speaking the Barbaries were just 'pirates' -- i.e. capturing ships, a profitable enterprise throughout the ages. I do not accept they were slave-raiders, though they were certainly slave-traders because of the passengers and crews from captured ships. There are documented cases of very occasional descents on towns and carrying off the odd bod but these were clearly not the point of the business.

They were finally stopped by the Americans during the Napoleonic wars because they had been targetting American ships. An unwise move as ever.

Well, actually it was the Brits that did most of the hard lifting but the Yanks made the most noise. As ever.

Feel free to disagree. I'm not sure where all these Viking ocean going liners peacefully sailing about with enormous keels to keep them upright went to. They do tend to find plenty of the other kind though.

Since you ask, they behaved like everyone else. They kitted out large armies, invaded countries and set up their own states.

I know Magnus Magnusson brought our attention to cuddly Vikings who wouldn't harm a fly. But he's in Valhalla drinking and joking with his ancestors and even official Scandinavian sites are admitting the truth of the Viking slave trade. You can find them yourself I'm sure.

If you think I am going to trust the Scandinavians to know their own history better than I know their history you are labouring under an immense illusion.

[Boreades]

Anyone who thinks it is worth sailing a thousand miles. pick up some slaves, sail another thousand miles, sell the slaves and then sail two thousand miles home again should not give up his day-job to go a-slaving.

Anyone could be forgiven for assuming that La Harpo is ignorant (or carefully ignoral) about the slave trade. But they would be wrong. He's just in one of his contrarian moods. It might be the football results that's soured his mood.

Dearest Harpo, if you can kindly unhock the TME Charabanc, and get yourself over to Bristol, I'll show you some of the waterside basements and cellars that were used by the slave trade. Still with shackle points and ring-bolts in the walls to chain-up the slaves. Who got there thanks to kindly folk who thought it worthwhile to sail two thousand miles, buy the slaves and then sailed two thousand miles home again.

Which reminds me. The Liberal Intelligentsia of that city, while clearly not in the same league as (say) the Liberal Intelligentsia of Notting Hill (or Knotting Hull as it used to be known), have just made a big-enough fuss to have the Colston Hall renamed.

Edward Colston is, says Katie Finnegan-Clarke, “almost like a cult figure” in Bristol. There is a Colston Street, and Colston Tower is on Colston Avenue. There is even a Colston bun, which you might eat on Colston’s Day. Finnegan-Clarke, one of the activists in the Countering Colston campaign, went to Colston’s Girls’ school, where “there are statues everywhere, and we had three ceremonies every year to celebrate his life.” Colston was a 17th-century philanthropist who gave great sums of money to the city – money he had made from slavery. This week it was announced that there would be one less Bristol institution bearing his name. The concert venue Colston Hall – which has been a target for activists for decades – will reopen in 2020, after its refurbishment, with a new name.

“We knew it was the right thing for the organisation,” says Louise Mitchell, the chief executive of the trust that runs the venue. “It’s very important to us as a progressive forward-looking arts organisation that we include everybody, and people felt uncomfortable entering the building because of the perception that it had in some way profited from the slave trade.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... penny-lane

[Mick Harper]

Why do people constantly and breathlessly tell me things that are known to every six-year-pld. Ever wondered, Borry, why the slave trade started in the sixteenth century? Yes, that's right! It's when they invented the Viking long ship!

[Boreades]

Ah yes, that must be the same 16th Century that the Romans used for their extensive slave trade. With their Viking longships.

[Mick Harper]

All right, you force me to spell out the economics of the slave trade. The Romans certainly did not use their 'long ships' -- by which I assume you mean their galleys -- for anything other than (naval) war or rapid communication. They of course used ordinary 'round' ships for the main maritime bulk trade which was in cereals. Slaves are a bulk cargo so the only slaves ever to be found on a Roman 'long ship' would be those puling the oars.

A slave society does not require a slave trade. Replacement from existing stock is more than adequate. However you do have to get them in the first place and this the Romans did by war. If however fresh supplies were necessary -- and Roman manumission policies were very liberal so they probably were -- then slaves were available from overland routes.

However, it is not transport costs that are the key ingredient in the slave trade. I will give you a little while to ponder this and say, "I am Spartacus, Mick, your intellectual slave" before I tell you the rest of the story.