Viking Graffiti
In 874 AD, 6000 Viking men were sent to the court of King Basil II in Byzantium as part of a peace treaty between the Emperor and the Kiev Vikings who had recently converted to Christianity. These mercenaries formed the basis of the Varangian guard, the elite bodyguards of the Eastern Roman emperor, a role that lasted until the fall of Constantinople in the fifteenth century. The Emperor valued the Norse men for their fierceness and strength. Money attracted the Vikings: good pay, spoils of war, and first pick of the palace goods after an emperor died.
The Varangians made their mark on Constantinople- literally. In the late twentieth century, graffiti made by these Scandinavian guards was discovered in the western gallery of the former Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia. The graffiti consisted of randomly carved runes by Vikings who, like many other visitors to foreign lands, only wanted to record that they had been there. “Halfdan made these runes” read one inscription, while the other simply read “Arni”.
Constantinople was not the only place that visiting Vikings marked their presence. The Piraeus Lion, carved in the fourth century BC guarded the port of Athens until it was pillaged by the Venetians in the seventeenth century. The Lion was taken back to Venice to safeguard its lagoon instead. However, its new Italian owners were puzzled about a strange flowing script that adorned the Lions’ body. It certainly wasn’t Greek.
The mystery was solved in the eighteenth century when a Swedish diplomat, identified the letters as Viking runes. It seems that sometime in the eleventh century, visiting Varangians decided to use the lion to record some of their adventures. Rather creatively, they added their inscriptions in the shape of a lindworm, a type of Scandinavian dragon.
The runes are badly eroded but can still be read in part. “They cut him down in the midst of his forces. But in the harbor, the men cut runes by the sea in memory of Horsi, a good warrior. The Swedes set this on the lion.” stated one section. The left-hand side of the lion, meanwhile, preserves the reasons the Varangians were in Greece: “Hakon with Ulf and Asmund and Örn conquered this port. These men and Harold Hafi imposed a heavy fine on account of the revolt of the Greek people.” it states.” Dalk is detained captive in far lands. Egil is gone on an expedition with Ragnar into Romania and Armenia.”