纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 056约克郡河谷宝藏（4）（在线收听）

The hoard pitches us into a key moment in the history of England, when an Anglo-Saxon King-Athelstan-at last defeated the Viking invaders and built the beginnings of the kingdom of England. Above all, it shows us the range of contacts enjoyed by the Vikings while they were running northern England. These Scandinavians were tremendously well connected, as the historian Michael Wood makes clear:

这一宝藏带我们进人了英格兰历史上的关键时刻：盎格鲁-撒克逊国王阿瑟斯坦终于击败了维京入侵者，建立了英格兰王国。当然，它们首先表明了维京人当年统治英格兰北部时的贸易范围。他们与外界接触十分频繁，如历史学家米歇尔伍德所说：

"There's a Viking arm-ring from Ireland, there's coins minted as far away as Samarkand and Afghanistan and Baghdad. And this gives you a sense of the reach of the age; these Viking kings and their agents and their trade routes spread across western Europe, Ireland, Scandinavia. You read Arab accounts of Viking slave dealers on the banks of the Caspian Sea; Guli the Russian-so-called because of his Russian hat, and he was Irish this guy, you know!-dealing in slaves out there on the Caspian, and those kind of trade routes; the river routes down to the Black Sea-through Novgorod and Kiev and these kind of places; you can see how in a very short time, coins minted in Samarkand, say, in 915, could end up in Yorkshire in the 920s."

其中有爱尔兰的维京臂环，以及来自遥远的撤马尔罕、阿富汗与巴格达的银币。我们从而得知了当时他们的活动范围。维京国王及其代理人的足迹踏遍了西欧、爱尔兰与北欧，其贸易路线也覆盖了这些区域。据阿拉伯文献记载，贩卖奴隶的维京商人曾在里海沿岸从事贸易，当时有个有名的奴隶贩子叫俄罗斯人古利。他其实是爱尔兰人，只因常戴着俄罗斯式的帽子而得此绰号。他曾在里海沿岸以及流经诺夫哥罗德和基辅、注入黑海的珂流沿线进行买卖，足迹遍及那些著名的贸易路线。这就是为什么公元915年铸造于撒马尔罕的银币能在四五年的时间内就在920年来到约克郡。