Alaborg
Encyclopedia
Norse saga
The sagas are stories about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking voyages, the battles that took place during the voyages, about migration to Iceland and of feuds between Icelandic families...
s about Halfdan Eysteinsson and Hrolf Ganger. The first saga indicates that it was possible to sail from Aldeigjuborg
Staraya Ladoga
Staraya Ladoga , or the Aldeigjuborg of Norse sagas, is a village in the Volkhovsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the Volkhov River near Lake Ladoga, 8 km north of the town of Volkhov. The village used to be a prosperous trading outpost in the 8th and 9th centuries...
(Ladoga) to Alaborg northward by sea, but a more rapid and practicable way was by land eastward. The text implies that Alaborg and Aldeigjuborg were two rivals, situated at a short distance from each other.
In 1989, Tatiana Jackson demonstrated that the only location conforming to this description is the so-called "Gorodishche" (literally, "abandoned fortress") on the Syas River
Syas River
Syas River is a river in the Novgorod and Leningrad Oblasts of Russia. The Syas River flows from Valdai Hills north into Lake Ladoga. A town of Syasstroy is located at its mouth. The largest tributary is Tikhvinka River...
. It was the only sizable settlement in the area east of Ladoga until the 13th or 14th century. Its Norse name may derive from the Valya River that flows in the vicinity.
Archaeology
Nikolay Repnikov was the first historian to recognize the archaeological importance of the village Gorodishche on the Syas River . Repnikov published his observations in 1900 but it was not until 1929 that Vladimir Ravdonikas started extensive excavations of the site. During the years of StalinismStalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
, the finds brought to light by Ravdonikas were lost, while the archaeological site was turned into a quarry for construction of a highway. As a result, the core of the site was totally destroyed and its overall integrity deteriorated.
Excavations of Alaborg were resumed in 1987–1990 by Oleg Boguslavsky and Anna Machinskaya. They defined the following areas of archaeological interest:
- an urban settlement (gorodishche) on a promontory between the river and a creek (now almost totally destroyed);
- rural settlements on the same promontory;
- a cluster of fifteen (formerly twenty) large conical tumuli to the northwest from the promontory;
- an outcrop of eight tumuli in the village Gorodishche;
- twenty five small mounds, about one mile to the southeast from the promontory;
- twenty nine "druzhinaDruzhinaDruzhina, Drużyna or Družyna in the medieval history of Slavic Europe was a retinue in service of a chieftain, also called knyaz. The name is derived from the Slavic word drug with the meaning of "companion, friend". -Early Rus:...
" mounds, about one mile to the northwest from the promontory (almost all excavated in 1929); - a chain of barrows along the right bank of the river (ten barrows were attested in the 1920s, only two extant as of 1993).
Historical context
Compared with the VolkhovVolkhov
Volkhov is an industrial town in Leningrad Oblast, Russia, situated east of St. Petersburg, on the Volkhov River. Population: -History:...
, the Syas River provided an alternative (and more rapid) route from the Baltic to the Volga. Its main drawback was the rapids, which made the river impracticable for Viking longship
Longship
Longships were sea vessels made and used by the Vikings from the Nordic countries for trade, commerce, exploration, and warfare during the Viking Age. The longship’s design evolved over many years, beginning in the Stone Age with the invention of the umiak and continuing up to the 9th century with...
s. While crossing the rapids, the ships were particularly susceptible to attacks from land. To protect these key points, the Varangians established the fortified settlements of Duboviki and Gorodische at the head of the lower and upper Volkhov rapids, accordingly. In a parallel fashion, Alaborg commanded a 20-metre-high hill above the Syas rapids (although no traces of actual fortifications have been found there in the 1980s).
Boguslavsky and Machinskaya date the earliest Scandinavian burial at Alaborg to ca. 700 CE. Archaeologically, the site has much in common with Ladoga
Staraya Ladoga
Staraya Ladoga , or the Aldeigjuborg of Norse sagas, is a village in the Volkhovsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the Volkhov River near Lake Ladoga, 8 km north of the town of Volkhov. The village used to be a prosperous trading outpost in the 8th and 9th centuries...
. It seems that the two sites developed on parallel lines. Alaborg was destroyed by fire and abandoned before the 930s, most likely towards the end of the 9th century. At that period all the other centres of the Rus' Khaganate
Rus' Khaganate
Rus' khaganate is a historiographical term for the formative phase of the Rus state in the 9th century AD....
faced with destruction, which Constantine Zuckerman
Constantine Zuckerman
Constantine Zuckerman is a French-Jewish historian and Professor of Byzantine studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris.-Biography:...
associates with Vadim
Vadim the Bold
Vadim the Bold was a legendary chieftain of the Ilmen Slavs who led their struggle against Rurik and the Varangians in the 9th century.According to the Nikon Chronicle, an historic 16th century Russian chronicle that covered events of 859–1520 CE, the Novgorodians broke into rebellion against...
's uprising, as recorded in the East Slavic chronicles.