, Sweden, known as U 240]] from Hagby (first placed near Möjebro), Uppland, Sweden. As with other early runic inscriptions, (e.g. Kylver Stone from about 300 - 400 CE) this is written from right to left, while later Runestones were written from left to right. The text is “Frawaradar anahaha is laginar” ]] A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition began in the 4th century, and it lasted into the 12th century, but most of the runestones date from the late Viking Age. Most runestones are located in Scandinavia, but there are also scattered runestones in locations that were visited by Norsemen during the Viking Age. Runestones are often memorials to deceased men. Runestones were usually brightly colored when erected, though this is no longer evident as the color has worn off.

History

, one of the oldest runestones in Denmark]] The tradition of raising stones that had runic inscriptions first appeared in the 4th and 5th century in Norway and Sweden, and these early runestones were usually placed next to graves.

The tradition is mentioned in both Ynglinga saga and Hávamál:

{| | :A son is better, :though late he be born, :And his father to death have fared; :Memory-stones :seldom stand by the road :Save when kinsman honors his kin. ::—Hávamál | |} What resulted in the production of most runestone was a trend that began in Denmark in the 960s. King Harald Bluetooth had just been baptized and in order to mark the arrival of a new order and a new age, he commanded the construction of a runestone. The inscription reads :King Haraldr ordered this monument made in memory of Gormr, his father, and in memory of Þyrvé, his mother; that Haraldr who won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian. The runestone has three sides of which two are decorated with images. On one side, there is an animal that is the prototype of the runic animals that would be commonly engraved on runestones, and on another side there is Denmark's oldest depiction of Jesus. Shortly after this stone had been made, something happened in Scandinavia's runic tradition. Scores of chieftains and powerful Norse clans consciously tried to imitate King Harald, and from Denmark a runestone wave spread northwards through Sweden. In most districts, the fad died out after a generation, but, in the central Swedish provinces of Uppland and Södermanland, the fashion lasted into the 12th century. Sweden has as many as between 1,700 Scattered runestones have also been found in England, Ireland, Scotland and the Faroe Islands.

Runestones were placed on selected spots in the landscape, such as assembly locations, roads, bridge constructions, and fords. In medieval churches, there are often runestones that have been inserted as construction material, and it is debated whether they were originally part of the church location or had been moved there. In southern Scania, runestones can be tied to large estates that also had churches constructed on their land. In the Mälaren Valley, the runestones appear to be placed so that they mark essential parts of the domains of an estate, such as courtyard, grave field, and borders to neighbouring estates. Runestones usually appear as single monuments and more rarely as pairs. In some cases, they are part of larger monuments together with other raised stones. On the other hand scholars agree that the stones were not moved very far from their original sites.

Effect of religion

in Södermanland, Sweden, shows Thor's hammer instead of a cross. Only two such runestones are known.]]

In many districts, c. 50% of the stone inscriptions have traces of Christianity, but, in Uppland, which has the highest concentration of runic inscriptions in the world, c. 70% of the 1,196 stone inscriptions are explicitly Christian, which is shown by engraved crosses or added Christian prayers, and only a few runestones are explicitly not Christian. Additionally, the runestones appear to show that the conversion was a rather peaceful process.

According to another theory, it was a social fashion that was popular among certain clans, but not among all of them. Several scholars have pointed out the long Viking expeditions and the considerable amassment of wealth in the district. At this time, Swedish chieftains near Stockholm had created considerable fortunes through trade and pillaging both in the East and in the West. They had seen the Danish Jelling Stones or they had been inspired by English high crosses and other monuments. while the runestone would serve as a memorial at the homestead, but for certain families, there was less change as they had churches built adjoining the family grave field.

Inscriptions

(DR 66) found in Aarhus, Denmark commemorates a battle between two kings and features a stylized depiction of a mask.]] The main purpose of a runestone was to mark territory, to explain inheritance, to boast about constructions, to bring glory to dead kinsmen and to tell of important events. In some parts of Uppland, the runestones also appear to have functioned as social and economical markers. the Lingsberg Runestone U 241: :And Danr and Húskarl and Sveinn had the stone erected in memory of Ulfríkr, their father's father. He had taken two payments in England. May God and God's mother help the souls of the father and son.

Stone raisers

Most runestones were raised by men and only one runestone in eight is raised by a single woman, while at least 10% are raised by a woman together with several men. It is common that the runestones were raised by sons and widows of the deceased, but they could also be raised by sisters and brothers. It is almost only in Uppland, Södermanland, and Öland that women raised runestones together with male relatives. It is not known why many people such as sisters, brothers, uncles, parents, housecarls, and business partners can be enumerated on runestones, but it is possible that it is because they are part of the inheritors.

It is unfortunate for historians that the stones rarely reveal where the men died. Another runemaster in the same province laconically states on the Dalum Runestone: "Tóki and his brothers raised this stone in memory of their brothers. One died in the west, another in the east".

The single country that is mentioned on most runestone is the Byzantine Empire, which at the time comprised most of Asia Minor and the Balkans, as well as a part of Southern Italy. If a man died in the Byzantine Empire, no matter how he had died or in which province, the event was mentioned laconically as "he died in Greece". Sometimes an exception could be made for Southern Italy, which was known as the land of the Lombards, such as Inga's Óleifr who, it is presumed, was a member of the Varangian Guard, and about whom the Djulafors Runestone in Södermanland says: "Inga raised this stone in memory of Óleifr, her ... He ploughed his stern to the east, and met his end in the land of the Lombards."

Other Norsemen died in Gardariki (Russia and Ukraine) such as Sigviðr on the Esta Runestone who his son Ingifastr reported had died in Novgorod (Holmgarðr): "He fell in Holmgarðr, the ship's leader with the seamen." There were others who died not as far from home and it appears that there were close contacts with Estonia due to many personal names such as Æistfari ("traveller to Estonia"), Æistulfr ("Wolf of Estonians") and Æistr ("Estonian"). One of the runestones that report of deaths in Estonia is the Ängby Runestone which tells that a Björn had died in Vironia (Virland). The most famous runestones that tell of eastern voyages are the Ingvar Runestones which tell of Ingvar the Far-Travelled's expedition to Serkland, i.e., the Muslim world. It ended in tragedy as none of the more than 25 runestones that were raised in its memory tells of any survivor.

Expeditions in the West

, Sweden]] , Sweden, reports that two Vikings had died in London.]] Other Vikings travelled westwards. The Anglo-Saxon rulers paid large sums, Danegelds, to Vikings, who mostly came from Denmark and who arrived to the English shores during the 990s and the first centuries of the 11th century. What may be part of a Danegeld has been found submerged in a creek in Södra Betby in Södermanland, Sweden. At the location, there is also a runestone with the text: "[...] raise the stone in memory of Jôrundr, his son, who was in the west with Ulfr, Hákon's son." It is not unlikely that the voyage westwards is connected with the English silver treasure.

Tosti may have been the Swedish chieftain Skoglar Tosti who is otherwise only mentioned by Snorri Sturluson in Heimskringla and who Snorri reports to have been a "great warrior" who "was out for long periods of time on war expeditions". Þorketill was Thorkell the Tall, one of the most famous Viking chieftains, and who often stayed in England. Knútr is no one else but Canute the Great, who became king of England in 1016. and the Landeryd Runestone mentions Þjalfi "who was with Knútr". Some Swedish Vikings wanted nothing else but to travel with Danes such as Thorkell and Canute the Great, but they did not make it to their destinations. Sveinn, who came from Husby-Sjuhundra in Uppland, died when he was half-way to England, as explained on the runestone that was raised in his memory: "He died in Jútland. He meant to travel to England". Other Vikings, such as Guðvér did not only attack England, but also Saxony, as reported by the Grinda Runestone in Södermanland: | |} There are in total c. 30 runestones that tell of people who went to England, and two runestones tell of men baptized in Denmark, such as the runestone in Amnö, which says "He died in christening robes in Denmark." A similar message is given on another runestone in Vallentuna near Stockholm that tells that two sons waited until they were on their death beds before they converted: "They died in (their) christening robes." Christening robes or baptismal clothes, hvitavaðir, were given to pagan Scandinavians when they were baptized, and in Uppland there are at least seven stones that tell of convertees having died in such robes.

The language used by the missionaries appears on several runestones, and they suggest that the missionaries used a rather uniform language when they preached. and the Bornholm runestone also appeals to Saint Michael: "May Christ and Saint Michael help the souls of Auðbjôrn and Gunnhildr into light and paradise."

Christian terminology was superimposed on the earlier pagan, and so Paradise substituted Valhalla, invocations to Thor and magic charms were replaced with Saint Michael, Christ, God, and the Mother of God. There are invocations to Saint Michael on one runestone in Uppland, one on Gotland, on three on Bornholm and on one on Lolland.

Other types of runestones

which triggered the great runestone trend in Scandinavia]] from Greenland]] Another interesting class of runestone is rune-stone-as-self promotion. Bragging was a virtue in Norse society, a habit in which the heroes of sagas often indulged, and is exemplified in runestones of the time. Hundreds of people had stones carved with the purpose of advertising their own achievements or positive traits. A few examples will suffice:

U 1011: "Vigmund had this stone carved in memory of himself, the cleverest of men. May God help the soul of Vigmund, the ship captain. Vigmund and Åfrid carved this memorial while he lived."

Frösö Runestone: “Östman Gudfast’s son made the bridge, and he Christianized Jämtland”

Dr 212: Eskill Skulkason had this stone raised to himself. Ever will stand this memorial that Eskill made;”

U 164: “Jarlabanki had this stone put up in his own lifetime. And he made this causeway for his soul’s sake. And he owned the whole of Täby by himself. May God help his soul.”

Other runestones, as evidenced in two of the previous three inscriptions, memorialize the pious acts of relatively new Christians. In these, we can see the kinds of good works people who could afford to commission runestones undertook. Other inscriptions hint at religious beliefs. For example, one reads:

U 160: “Ulvshattil and Gye and Une ordered this stone erected in memory of Ulv, their good father. He lived in Skolhamra. God and God's Mother save his spirit and soul, endow him with light and paradise.”

Although most runestones were set up to perpetuate the memories of men, many speak of women, often represented as conscientious landowners and pious Christians:

Sö 101: “Sigrid, Alrik’s mother, Orm’s daughter made this bridge for her husband Holmgers, father of Sigoerd, for his soul”

as important members of extended families:

Br Olsen;215: “Mael-Lomchon and the daughter of Dubh-Gael, whom Adils had to wife, raised this cross in memory of Mael-Muire, his fostermother. It is better to leave a good fosterson than a bad son”

and as much-missed loved ones:

N 68: “Gunnor, Thythrik’s daughter, made a bridge in memory of her daughter Astrid. She was the most skilful girl in Hadeland.”

As sources

The only existing Scandinavian texts dating to the period before 1050 In addition, the runestones usually remain in their original form and at their original locations, and so their importance as historical sources cannot be overstated. Though the stones offer Scandinavian historians their main resource of information concerning early Scandinavian society, not much can be learned by studying the stones individually. The wealth of information that the stones provide can be found in the different movements and reasons for erecting the stones, in each region respectively. Approximately ten percent of the known runestones announce the travels and deaths of men abroad. These runic inscriptions coincide with certain Latin sources, such as the Annals of St. Bertin and the writings of Liudprand of Cremona, which contain valuable information on Scandinavians/Rus' who visited Byzantium.

Imagery

The inscription is usually arranged inside a band, which often has the shape of a serpent, a dragon or a quadruped beast. He is depicted on several runestones, but the most famous of them is the Ramsund inscription. The inscription itself is of a common kind that tells of the building of a bridge, but the ornamentation shows Sigurd sitting in a pit thrusting his sword, forged by Regin, through the body of the dragon, which also forms the runic band in which the runes are engraved. In the left part of the inscription lies Regin, who is beheaded with all his smithying tools around him. To the right of Regin, Sigurd is sitting and he has just burnt his thumb on the dragon's heart that he is roasting. He is putting the thumb in his mouth and begins to understand the language of the marsh-tits that are sitting in the tree. They warn him of Regin's schemes. Sigurd's horse Grani is also shown tethered to the tree.

Another important personage from the legend of the Nibelungs is Gunnarr. On the Västerljung Runestone, there are three sides and one of them shows a man whose arms and legs are encircled by snakes. He is holding his arms stretched out gripping an object that may be a harp, but that part is damaged due to flaking.

Norse myths

attacked by Fenrir on the Ledberg stone, Sweden]] The Norse god who was most popular was Thor, and the Altuna Runestone in Uppland shows Thor's fishing expedition when he tried to capture the Midgard Serpent. Two centuries later, the Icelander Snorri Sturluson would write: "The Midgarth Serpent bit at the ox-head and the hook caught in the roof of its mouth. When it felt that, it started so violently that both Thor's fists went smack against the gunwhale. Then Thor got angry, assumed all his godly strength, and dug his heels so sturdily that his feet went right through the bottom of the boat and he braced them on the sea bed." (Jansson's translation). The Altuna Runestone has also included the foot that went through the planks.

It appears that Ragnarök is depicted on the Ledberg stone in Östergötland. On one of its sides it shows a large warrior with a helmet, and who is bitten at his feet by a beast. This beast is, it is presumed, Fenrir, the brother of the Midgard Serpent, and who is attacking Odin. On the bottom of the illustration, there is a prostrate man who is holding out his hands and who has no legs. There is a close parallel from an illustration at Kirk Douglas on the Isle of Man. The Manx illustration shows Odin with a spear and with one of his ravens on his shoulders, and Odin is attacked in the same way as he is on the Ledberg stone. Adding to the stone's spiritual content is a magic formula that was known all across the world of the pagan Norsemen.

There are several runestones where it is declared that they were originally painted. A runestone in Södermanland says "Here shall these stones stand, reddened with runes", a second runestone in the same province says "Ásbjörn carved and Ulfr painted" and a third runestone in Södermanland says "Ásbjôrn cut the stone, painted as a marker, bound with runes". Sometimes, the original colors have been preserved unusually well, and especially if the runestones were used as construction material in churches not very long after they had been made. One runestone in the church of Köping on Öland was discovered to be painted all over, and the colour of the words was alternating between black and red. There are even accounts where runes were reddened with blood as in Grettis saga, where the Völva Þuríðr cut runes on a tree root and colored them with her own blood to kill Grettir, and in Egils saga where Egill Skallagrímsson cut ale runes on a drinking horn and painted them with his own blood to see if the drink was poisoned.

Preservation and care

The exposed runestones face several threats to the inscribed rock surface.

In Sweden, lichen grows at approximately 2 mm per year. In more ideal conditions it can grow considerably faster. Many runestones are placed alongside roads and road dust causes lichen to grow faster, making lichen a major problem. The lichen's small root strands break through the rock, and blast off tiny pieces, making the rock porous, and over time degrade the inscriptions. Algae and moss also cause the rock to become porous and crumble.

Water entering the cracks and crevices of the stone can cause whole sections to fall off either by freezing or by a combination of dirt, organic matter, and moisture, which can cause a hollowing effect under the stone surface.

Proper preservation techniques slow down the rate of degradation. One method to combat the lichen, algae and moss problem is to smear in fine grained moist clay over the entire stone. This is then left to sit for a few weeks, which suffocates the organic matter and kills it.

See also

Alliterative verse

List of runestones

Old Norse orthography

Picture stone

Stele

Valknut

Viking Runestones

Varangian Runestones

Notes

References

Bellows, Henry A. (1936). The Poetic Edda. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New York.

Harrison, D. & Svensson, K. (2007). Vikingaliv. Fälth & Hässler, Värnamo. ISBN 91-27-35725-2

Nationalencyklopedin (1995), tome 16, p. 91-92.

Larsson, Mats G. (1999). Svitjod – Resor till Sveriges Ursprung. Atlantis. ISBN 91-7486-421-1

Page, Raymond I. (1995). Runes and Runic Inscriptions: Collected Essays on Anglo-Saxon and Viking Runes. Parsons, D. (ed). Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-0-85115-387-2

Pritsak, O. (1987). The Origin of Rus'. Cambridge, Mass.: Distributed by Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

Sawyer, Birgit. (2000). The Viking-Age Rune-Stones: Custom and Commemoration in Early Medieval Scandinavia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-926221-7

Sawyer, P. (1997). The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-285434-8

Snaedal, T. & Åhlen, M. (2004). Svenska Runor. Riksantikvarieämbetet, 33 & 34. ISBN 91-7209-366-8

External links

The Jelling Project - Information about Jelling and the runestones

Photos of runestones and image stones from Gotland

Category:Rock art in Europe Category:Scandinavian history Category:Sources of Norse mythology Category:Viking Age

:For the equivalent concept in Chinese culture see Hua-Yi distinction. warriors" as depicted in Philipp Clüver's Germania Antiqua (1616).]] Barbarian and Savage are pejorative terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage. In idiomatic or figurative usage, a "barbarian" may also be an individual reference to a brutal, cruel, warlike, insensitive person.

The term originates in the ancient Greek civilization, meaning "anyone who is not Greek", and thus was often used to refer to other civilized people, such as the people of the Persian Empire. Comparable notions are found in non-European civilizations.

Etymology and definitions

The primary function of the word "barbarian", and its cognates, is to differentiate members of one's own society from people perceived as being outside of it, and to posit that one's own culture is superior. The word barbaros in Ancient Greek was an antonym for civis and polis. The sound of barbaros onomatopoetically evokes the image of babbling (a person speaking a non-Greek language).

The Greeks used the term as they encountered scores of different foreign cultures, including the Egyptians, Persians, Medes, Celts, Germans, Phoenicians, Etruscans and Carthaginians. In fact, it became a common term to refer to all foreigners. However in various occasions, the term was also used by Greeks, especially the Athenians, to deride other Greek tribes and states (such as Epirotes, Eleans, Macedonians and Aeolic-speakers) in a pejorative and politically motivated manner. Of course, the term also carried a cultural dimension to its dual meaning. The verb (barbarízein) in ancient Greek meant imitating the linguistic sounds non-Greeks made or making grammatical errors in Greek.

Plato (Statesman 262de) rejected the Greek–barbarian dichotomy as a logical absurdity on just such grounds: dividing the world into Greeks and non-Greeks told one nothing about the second group. In Homer's works, the term appeared only once (Iliad 2.867), in the form ("of incomprehensible speech"), used of the Carians fighting for Troy during the Trojan War. In general, the concept of barbaros did not figure largely in archaic literature before the 5th century BC. Still it has been suggested that "barbarophonoi" in the Iliad signifies not those who spoke a non-Greek language but simply those who spoke Greek badly.

A change occurred in the connotations of the word after the Greco-Persian Wars in the first half of the 5th century BC. Here a hasty coalition of Greeks defeated the vast Achaemenid Empire. Indeed in the Greek of this period 'barbarian' is often used expressly to mean Persian.

Slavery in Greece

A parallel factor was the growth of chattel slavery especially at Athens. Although enslavement of Greeks for non-payment of debt continued in most Greek states, it was banned at Athens under Solon in the early 6th century BC. Under the Athenian democracy established ca. 508 BC slavery came to be used on a scale never before seen among the Greeks. Massive concentrations of slaves were worked under especially brutal conditions in the silver mines at Laureion—a major vein of silver-bearing ore was found there in 483 BC—while the phenomenon of skilled slave craftsmen producing manufactured goods in small factories and workshops became increasingly common.

Furthermore, slaves were no longer the preserve of the rich: all but the poorest of Athenian households came to have slaves to supplement the work of their free members. Overwhelmingly, the slaves of Athens were "barbarian" in origin, drawn especially from lands around the Black Sea such as Thrace and Taurica (Crimea), while from Asia Minor came above all Lydians, Phrygians and Carians. Aristotle (Politics 1.2-7; 3.14) even states that barbarians are slaves by nature.

From this period words like barbarophonos, cited above from Homer, began to be used not only of the sound of a foreign language but of foreigners speaking Greek improperly. In Greek, the notions of language and reason are easily confused in the word logos, so speaking poorly was easily conflated with being stupid, an association not of course limited to the ancient Greeks.

Further changes occurred in the connotations of barbari/barbaroi in Late Antiquity, when bishops and catholikoi were appointed to sees connected to cities among the "civilized" gentes barbaricae such as in Armenia or Persia, whereas bishops were appointed to supervise entire peoples among the less settled.

Eventually the term found a hidden meaning by Christian Romans through the folk etymology of Cassiodorus. He stated the word barbarian was "made up of barba (beard) and rus (flat land); for barbarians did not live in cities, making their abodes in the fields like wild animals".

The female given name "Barbara" originally meant "a barbarian woman", and as such was likely to have had a pejorative meaning — given that most such women in Graeco-Roman society were of a low social status (often being slaves). However, Saint Barbara is mentioned as being the daughter of rich and respectable Roman citizens. Evidently, by her time (about 300 AD according to Christian hagiography, though some historians put the story much later) the name no longer had any specific ethnic or pejorative connotations.

Hellenic stereotype

Out of those sources the Hellenic stereotype was elaborated: barbarians are like children, unable to speak or reason properly, cowardly, effeminate, luxurious, cruel, unable to control their appetites and desires, politically unable to govern themselves. These stereotypes were voiced with much shrillness by writers like Isocrates in the 4th century BC who called for a war of conquest against Persia as a panacea for Greek problems. Ironically, many of the former attributes were later ascribed to the Greeks, especially the Seleucid kingdom, by the Romans.

However, the Hellenic stereotype of barbarians was not a universal feature of Hellenic culture. Xenophon, for example, wrote the Cyropaedia, a laudatory fictionalised account of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian empire, effectively a utopian text. In his Anabasis, Xenophon's accounts of the Persians and other non-Greeks he knew or encountered hardly seem to be under the sway of these stereotypes at all.

The renowned orator Demosthenes made derogatory comments in his speeches, using the word "barbarian."

Barbarian is used in its Hellenic sense by St. Paul in the New Testament (Romans 1:14) to describe non-Greeks, and to describe one who merely speaks a different language (1 Corinthians 14:11).

About a hundred years after Paul's time, Lucian - a native of Samosata, in the former kingdom of Commagene, which had been absorbed by the Roman Empire and made part of the province of Syria - used the term "barbarian" to describe himself. As he was a noted satirist, this could have been a deprecating self-irony. It might also have indicated that he was descended from Samosata's original Semitic population - likely to have been called "barbarians" by later Hellenistic, Greek-speaking settlers, and who might have eventually taken up this appellation themselves.

The term retained its standard usage in the Greek language throughout the Middle Ages, as it was widely used by the Byzantine Greeks until the fall of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century.

Cicero described the mountain area of inner Sardinia as "a land of barbarians", with these inhabitants also known by the manifestly pejorative term latrones mastrucati ("thieves with a rough garment in wool"). The region is up to the present known as "Barbagia" (in Sardinian "Barbàgia" or "Barbaza"), all of which are traceable to this old "barbarian" designation - but no longer consciously associated with it, and used naturally as the name of the region by its own inhabitants.

The Dying Gaul statue

, Rome.]]

Some insight about the Hellenistic perception of and attitude to "Barbarians" can be taken from the "Dying Gaul", a statue commissioned by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Celtic Galatians in Anatolia (the bronze original is lost, but a Roman marble copy was found in the 17th Century). The statue depicts with remarkable realism a dying Gallic warrior with a typically Gallic hairstyle and moustache. He lies on his fallen shield while sword and other objects lie beside him. He appears to be fighting against death, refusing to accept his fate.

The statue serves both as a reminder of the Celts' defeat, thus demonstrating the might of the people who defeated them, and a memorial to their bravery as worthy adversaries. The message conveyed by the sculpture, as H. W. Janson comments, is that "they knew how to die, barbarians that they were."

Arabic context

The Berbers of North Africa were among the many peoples called "Barbarian" by the Romans; in their case, the name remained in use, having been adopted by the Arabs (see Berber (Etymology)) and is still in use as the name for the non-Arabs in North Africa (though not by themselves). The geographical term Barbary or Barbary Coast, and the name of the Barbary pirates based on that coast (and who were not necessarily Berbers) were also derived from it.

The term has also been used to refer to people from Barbary, a region encompassing most of North Africa. The name of the region, Barbary, comes from the Arabic word Barbar, possibly from the Latin word barbaricum, meaning "land of the barbarians".

Non-European civilizations

Historically, the term barbarian has seen widespread use. Many peoples have dismissed alien cultures and even rival civilizations as barbarians because they were unrecognizably strange. The Greeks admired Scythians and Eastern Gauls as heroic individuals— even in the case of Anacharsis as philosophers—but considered their culture to be barbaric. The Romans indiscriminately regarded the various Germanic tribes, the settled Gauls, and the raiding Huns as barbarians.

The Romans adapted the term to refer to anything non-Greco-Roman.

The nomadic steppe peoples north of the Black Sea, including the Pechenegs and the Kipchaks, were called barbarians by Byzantines.

The Hindus referred to all alien cultures in ancient times as 'Mlechcha' or Barbarians (although it means the 'the dirty ones' not the 'cruel ones'). In the ancient texts, Mlechchas are people who are dirty and who have given up the Vedic beliefs. Today this term implies those with bad hygiene. Among the tribes termed Mlechcha were Sakas, Hunas, Yavanas, Kambojas, Pahlavas, Bahlikas and Rishikas.

Modern academia

barbarian serves as an atlas on a 16th century villa in Milan. Sculpted by Antonio Abbondio for Leone Leoni]]

A famous quote from anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss says: "The barbarian is the one who believes in barbary", a meaning like his metaphor in Race et histoire ("Race and history", UNESCO, 1952), that two cultures are like two different trains crossing each other: each one believes it has chosen the good direction. A broader analysis reveals that neither party "chooses" their direction, but that their "brutish" behaviors have formed out of necessity, being entirely dependent on and hooked to their surrounding geography and circumstances of birth.

Although some terms in academia do go out of style, such as "Dark Ages", the term Barbarian is in full common currency among all mainstream medieval scholars and is not out of style or outdated, though a disclaimer is often felt to be needed, as when Ralph W. Mathisen prefaces a discussion of barbarian bishops in Late Antiquity, "It should also be noted that the word "barbarian" will be used here as a convenient, nonpejorative term to refer to all the non-Latin and non-Greek speaking exterae gentes who dwelt around, and even eventually settled within, the Roman Empire during late antiquity".

The significance of barbarus in Late Antiquity has been specifically explored on several occasions.

Examples of this modern usage can also be seen in the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, which has an article titled "Barbarians, the Invasions" and uses the term barbarian throughout its 13 volumes. A 2006 book by Yale historian Walter Goffart is called Barbarian Tides and uses barbarian throughout to refer to the larger pantheon of tribes that the Roman Empire encountered. Walter Pohl, a leading pan-European expert on ethnicity and Late Antiquity, published a 1997 book titled Kingdoms of the Empire: The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity. The Encyclopædia Britannica and other general audience encyclopedias use the term barbarian throughout within the context of late antiquity.

Modern popular culture

Modern popular culture contains such fantasy barbarians as Tarzan and Conan the Barbarian.

In fantasy novels and role-playing games, barbarians or berserkers are often represented as lone warriors, very different from the vibrant cultures on which they are based. Several characteristics are commonly shared:

Physical prowess and fighting skill combined with a fierce temper and a tolerance for pain

An appetite for, and the ability to attract, the opposite gender thanks to animal magnetism

Meat eating (this fits several social norms. Nomadic peoples and military men often ate more meat because they were not in one place long enough to farm and harvest.)

An appetite for alcohol and an unusual stamina to stave off its effects

A blending of Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, and nomadic Turco-Mongol cultures

See also

Barbarian invasions

Barbarism

Barbarism (linguistics)

Civilization

Ethnocentrism

Skræling

Stateless societies

Vandals

Notes

Category:Greek loanwords Category:Pejorative terms for people Category:Sociology Category:Warriors Category:Warriors of Europe Category:Onomatopoeias Category:Cultural concepts