one-tenth of their profits, to the authority. Three main centres are distinguished by the
source: Ku ̄ya ̄ba, which is the king’s seat and produces distinctive fur and valuable
swords, S.la ̄ba ̄, where in peaceful times they travel to the Bulgar area, and Urta ̄b, an
extremely protected site that produces valuable blades and swords (Birkeland 1951 : 52 ).
A peace treaty between Rus’ and Byzantium dated to 912 demonstrates a new kind
of identity. Here among the envoys presenting themselves as ‘from the kin of Rus’’,
thirteen emissaries bear Scandinavian names while two are more probably Finnish ones.
More changes can be seen in the text of the treaty of 944 where we can still see
Scandinavian and Finnish names while Slavic names appear for the first time (Melnikova
2003 : 459 ). The Rus’ in these treaties denotes representatives of the princely family,
their emissaries, other agents and merchants, and does not take into account their
ethnic origin. As it was defined recently, Rus’ of this period ‘was a family owned
company, equipped with its own administration, military forces, laws and its
own aborigines to exploit. The parallel that immediately comes to mind is that of
European colonial companies of modern times’ (Tolochko 2001 : 131 ). Until the
eleventh century the word Rus’ still referred to Scandinavians and was then replaced by
the word Varangians. It was first mentioned by the Byzantine historian John Skylitzes
c. 1034. Then we find it in a number of official Byzantine charters from the eleventh
century, where the names Varangians and Rus’ are used as synonyms (Obolensky 1970 :
161 – 2 ). From around the same time came the Arabic name Bahr Warank (Varangian
Sea) (Birkeland 1954 : 60 ) and Varjagi of The Primary Chronicle. The origin of the word
is still not clear but it stood for different things in different languages. In Slavic and
Greek it meant Scandinavians and/or Franks; in English or Old Norse it referred to
Scandinavian mercenaries in the service of Byzantine emperors (Pritsak 1993 : 688 ).
Hetaireia, the imperial guard, had many foreign mercenaries. Whereas the Rus’ mostly
acted from their ships, the Byzantine Varang-guard chiefly consisted of heavy cavalry.
Many of the Varangians also became part of the bodyguard of Kievan princes. The
mercenary Varangians who came to Rus’ and the Byzantine Empire were all males.
The lack of women among them marks an essential difference compared to the Rus’. The
Rus’ came with their families and settled in Rus’. During the second part of the eleventh
century the term increasingly signified west Christians/Catholics in Rus’.
How long did Scandinavians in other cultural settings remember their origin?
How did they see their identity? It has been suggested by some archaeologists that
Scandinavians were rapidly assimilated (Lebedev and Nazarenko 1975 : 7 ). One of the
arguments for this idea was the production in some centres of Rus’ of so-called hybrid
objects reflecting both Scandinavian and local cultural peculiarities (Arbman 1960 ;
Avdusin 1969 : 56 ; Lebedev and Nazarenko 1975 : 7 – 8 ). This point of view found
supporters among Russian archaeologists while Scandinavian ones do not regard these
objects as being anything other than Scandinavian (Callmer 1971 : 68 ; Jansson 1987 :
780 ). It was concluded recently that already in the first quarter of the tenth century
some Scandinavians could use Old Russian. The only basis for this conclusion is the
famous cremated boat grave from Gnëzdovo, which together with such typical Scandi-
navian traits as a broken sword, oval brooch and Þórr’s hammer ring contained also a
Byzantine amphora with a Cyrillic inscription gorouhsha or goroushcha (Melnikova 2003 :
456 ). Despite the disputed reading of the inscription, it is still treated as the oldest
dated Russian inscription. Nevertheless, apart from the amphora, other objects of
Byzantine origin were also found, which make it possible to conclude that inscribed
–– chapter 38 : The Vikings in the east––