Truso
Encyclopedia
Truso, situated on Lake Druzno, was an Old Prussian (Pomesania
n) town near the Baltic Sea
just east of the Vistula River. It was one of the trading posts on the Amber Road
, and is thought to be the antecedent of the city of Elbląg
(Elbing). In the words of Marija Gimbutas
, "the name of the town is the earliest known historically in the Baltic Sea area". The main goods of Truso were amber
, furs, and slaves.
in the north to the island of Gotland
and to Visby
in the Baltic Sea
and later included the Hanseatic
city of Elbing. From there, traders continued further south to Carnuntum
in the Alps
. This was called the Amber Road
. The ancient amber roads led further south-west and south-east to the Black Sea
and eventually to Asia. ""For East Prussia
, Truso played the same role as Haithabu (Schleswig
) or Hedeby
for north-western Germany or Slavic Vineta
for Pomerania
", Gimbutas has observed.
East-west trade route went from Truso and Wiskiauten (a rival centre in Prussia which sprang up at the south-western corner of the Courish Lagoon), along the Baltic Sea to Jutland
, and from there up the Schlei
inlet to Haithabu/Hedeby, a large trading center in Jutland
. Hedeby, which lay near the modern city of Schleswig in Schleswig-Holstein
, was pretty centrally located and could be reached from all four directions over land as well as from the North Sea
, the Atlantic Ocean
, and the Baltic Sea.
Around the year 890, Wulfstan of Hedeby
(by his own account) undertook a seven-days boat journey from Hedeby to Truso at the behest of king Alfred the Great
. 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.
), in the south-eastern suburb of Elbląg
. These artifacts, dating from the 7th to 12th century, were put into the Elbing Museum and are now on exhibition at the Elbląg Museum. In the 1980s, the Polish archaeologist Marek F. Jagodziński resumed excavations and cleared a c. 20 hectare site, which was burnt down around the year 1000, whereupon the inhabitants found it prudent to disperse.
Whether the site excavated near Elbląg should be identified with Truso is open to question. "To the present no true town has been found and excavated. Instead there have been finds of Norse weapons, and there is a large Viking Age cemetery near the modern town's railway station containing many Scandinavian graves, these, too, showing a Sweden-Gotlandic pattern". This statement is contrary to the Elbląg Museum brochure: Truso- A Discovered Legend, by Marek F Jagodziński, which speaks of 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.
Pomesania
Pomesanians were one of the Prussian clans. They lived in Pomesania , a historical region in modern northern Poland, located between the Nogat and Vistula Rivers to the west and the Elbląg River to the east. It is located around the modern towns of Elbląg and Malbork...
n) town near the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
just east of the Vistula River. It was one of the trading posts on the Amber Road
Amber Road
The Amber Road was an ancient trade route for the transfer of amber. As one of the waterways and ancient highways, for centuries the road led from Europe to Asia and back, and from northern Africa to the Baltic Sea....
, and is thought to be the antecedent of the city of Elbląg
Elblag
Elbląg is a city in northern Poland with 127,892 inhabitants . It is the capital of Elbląg County and has been assigned to the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship since 1999. Before then it was the capital of Elbląg Voivodeship and a county seat in Gdańsk Voivodeship...
(Elbing). In the words of Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas , was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological...
, "the name of the town is the earliest known historically in the Baltic Sea area". The main goods of Truso were amber
Amber
Amber is fossilized tree resin , which has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Amber is used as an ingredient in perfumes, as a healing agent in folk medicine, and as jewelry. There are five classes of amber, defined on the basis of their chemical constituents...
, furs, and slaves.
History
Truso was situated in a central location upon the Eastern European trade routes, which led from BirkaBirka
During the Viking Age, Birka , on the island of Björkö in Sweden, was an important trading center which handled goods from Scandinavia as well as Central and Eastern Europe and the Orient. Björkö is located in Lake Mälaren, 30 kilometers west of contemporary Stockholm, in the municipality of Ekerö...
in the north to the island of Gotland
Gotland
Gotland is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden; it is Sweden's largest island and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, the region makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area...
and to Visby
Visby
-See also:* Battle of Visby* Gotland University College* List of governors of Gotland County-External links:* - Visby*...
in the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
and later included the Hanseatic
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
city of Elbing. From there, traders continued further south to Carnuntum
Carnuntum
Carnuntum was a Roman army camp on the Danube in the Noricum province and after the 1st century the capital of the Upper Pannonia province...
in the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
. This was called the Amber Road
Amber Road
The Amber Road was an ancient trade route for the transfer of amber. As one of the waterways and ancient highways, for centuries the road led from Europe to Asia and back, and from northern Africa to the Baltic Sea....
. The ancient amber roads led further south-west and south-east to the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
and eventually to Asia. ""For East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
, Truso played the same role as Haithabu (Schleswig
Schleswig
Schleswig or South Jutland is a region covering the area about 60 km north and 70 km south of the border between Germany and Denmark; the territory has been divided between the two countries since 1920, with Northern Schleswig in Denmark and Southern Schleswig in Germany...
) or Hedeby
Hedeby
Hedeby |heath]]land, and býr = yard, thus "heath yard"), mentioned by Alfred the Great as aet Haethe , in German Haddeby and Haithabu, a modern spelling of the runic Heiðabý was an important trading settlement in the Danish-northern German borderland during the Viking Age...
for north-western Germany or Slavic Vineta
Vineta
Vineta or Wineta was a possibly legendary ancient town believed to have been on the coast of the Baltic Sea. It was commonly said to be on the present site of Wolin in Poland or of Zinnowitz on Usedom island in Germany. Today it is said to have been near Barth in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...
for Pomerania
Pomerania
Pomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...
", Gimbutas has observed.
East-west trade route went from Truso and Wiskiauten (a rival centre in Prussia which sprang up at the south-western corner of the Courish Lagoon), along the Baltic Sea to Jutland
Jutland
Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...
, and from there up the Schlei
Schlei
The Schlei is a narrow inlet of the Baltic Sea in Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany. It stretches for approximately 20 miles from the Baltic near Kappeln and Arnis to the city of Schleswig. Along the Schlei are many small bays and swamps...
inlet to Haithabu/Hedeby, a large trading center in Jutland
Jutland
Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...
. Hedeby, which lay near the modern city of Schleswig in Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...
, was pretty centrally located and could be reached from all four directions over land as well as from the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
, the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
, and the Baltic Sea.
Around the year 890, Wulfstan of Hedeby
Wulfstan of Hedeby
Wulfstan of Hedeby was a late ninth century traveller and trader. His travel accounts, as well as those of another trader, Ohthere, were included in Alfred the Great's translation of Orosius' Histories...
(by his own account) undertook a seven-days boat journey from Hedeby to Truso at the behest of king Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...
. 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
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...
, the West Saxon ruler, already kept in close contact with the continental Saxons and the Franks.
Archaeology
German archaeological finds in 1897 and excavations started in the 1920s had located Truso around Gut Hansdorf (after 1945 Janów Pomorski, PolandPoland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
), in the south-eastern suburb of Elbląg
Elblag
Elbląg is a city in northern Poland with 127,892 inhabitants . It is the capital of Elbląg County and has been assigned to the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship since 1999. Before then it was the capital of Elbląg Voivodeship and a county seat in Gdańsk Voivodeship...
. These artifacts, dating from the 7th to 12th century, were put into the Elbing Museum and are now on exhibition at the Elbląg Museum. In the 1980s, the Polish archaeologist Marek F. Jagodziński resumed excavations and cleared a c. 20 hectare site, which was burnt down around the year 1000, whereupon the inhabitants found it prudent to disperse.
Whether the site excavated near Elbląg should be identified with Truso is open to question. "To the present no true town has been found and excavated. Instead there have been finds of Norse weapons, and there is a large Viking Age cemetery near the modern town's railway station containing many Scandinavian graves, these, too, showing a Sweden-Gotlandic pattern". This statement is contrary to the Elbląg Museum brochure: Truso- A Discovered Legend, by Marek F Jagodziński, which speaks of 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.