Re:Why did Vikings have 'Allah' embroidered into funeral clo...
by mumblemumble on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @03:40PM
(#22250763)
Don't forget that you have to assume they were using some sort of special Tardis textile that's bigger on the inside. That, to me, is the most compelling criticism. Everything else is arguably circumstantial, but it's kind of hard to look past a hypothesis apparently resting on a physical impossibility.
It's hard for me to see this as a big moral loss, either. A more compelling poster child for Vikings' relationship with Islam would be the examples of Vikings converting to Islam that are documented in the historical record. The garment, even if you accept for the sake of argument that it does read Allah, could still just be a prized souvenir.
So what, it must be true because if you don't think it's true, you're a racist?
This particular article points out a specific piece that apparently spells "Allah" only when viewed in a mirror, in a style that didn't exist for another 500 years, with a spelling error.
And no, it's not problematic if it were true. It's problematic that this is being passed as real archaeology when the methodology is extremely biased.