Ahmad ibn Fadlan
The tenth-century Arab Muslim writer Ahmad ibn Fadlan produced a description of a funeral near the Volga River of a chieftain whom he identified as belonging to people he called "Rūsiyyah". Scholars generally interpret these people as Scandinavian Rus' on the Volga trade route from the Baltic to the Black Seas, although other theories have been suggested. They may also have absorbed influences from other cultures, especially if they had been settled for several generations.