Ingvar the Far-Travelled

'Ingvar the Far-Travelled' was a famous Viking from the 11th Century.

Our modern-day Ingvar would like to become very Far-Travelled himself.

Please keep him moving from cache to cache. He would really like to travel to Sweden one day.

HISTORIC INFO:

Ingvar the Far-Travelled was the leader of an unsuccessful Viking attack against Persia, in the 11th Century.

Interesting inscriptions on about 30 runestones in the Swedish provinces tell us about a great expedition into the east led by a Captain called Ingvar.

The 'Ingvar Stones', as they are called, mention steersmen, ship's captains and navigators. Ingvar was a chieftain, probably from the "Uppsala family", son of the great man Emund, grandson of King Erik the Victorious. The expedition set about somewhere between 1036-1040 AD, when Ingvar was about 25 years old.

Archaeologists have argued about the precise course of Ingvar's voyage, as the stones are not specific and the only written source that mentions the journey is a later medieval saga, in which the truth is difficult to determine. It is likely, however, that Ingvar followed the route to Byzantium, sailed around the Black Sea and made his way overland to "Serkland" the land of the Saracens around the Caspian Sea. The expedition seems to have met with some terrible disaster in the present day Georgia, and few, or none returned.

The stones erected by the parents and friends of those who died, perhaps raised many years later, serve both as a fitting tribute to the Viking ideology and as a memorial to a voyage that was the equal and more of the great journeys of the 9th and 10th centuries.