Uh...Ahmed ibn Fadhlan. Really?


Just watched an episode about Islam preserving the knowledge that would have been otherwise lost in the European dark ages, and they did a whole section on the Antonio Banderas character in The 13th Warrior. Travelled in the land of the Northmen, and had adventures with Vikings my aunt Fanny. Michael Crichton made him up for a book, and made up an imaginary biography supposedly kept in a museum in Europe. Can't believe they fell for it.

Excerpt from the trivia section of that film:

Since Michael Crichton published his novel "Eaters of the Dead" in 1976, the basis of this film, it has become regarded as one of the most notorious hoaxes in Librarianship Circles. The Ahmad Tusi Manuscript that Crichton referenced in his bibliography as being the source of this story, is completely made up. The name of the translator Fraus Dolus is in fact two Latin words meaning both 'hoax' and 'fraud'. The University of Oslo, where this manuscript is supposed to be kept, have (since the book was published), on an annual basis had to send out letters telling enquirers that they have been the victim of a hoax.

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