Objects with Viking Rune Inscriptions Unearthed in Denmark’s Oldest Town

Ancient Origins

Ancient objects with rare Viking rune inscriptions have been discovered in Denmark. Experts suggest that the runic inscriptions could possibly shed new light on a very important period of the early Viking age.

Comb with Rare Runic Inscription Unearthed
One of the objects that archaeologists unearthed in Denmark is a comb with a rare runic inscription of the word “comb. The object dates back to around 800 AD and it was discovered during excavations of a Viking Age market place in Ribe – the country's oldest town. The comb’s considered extremely valuable as only a handful of runic texts from this period exist nowadays.

 Close to the comb, archaeologists also found a runic inscription on a small plate of bone or antler. According to the archaeologist and excavation director to Søren Sindbæk from Aarhus University, both objects illustrate best the missing details from a key period of Viking history, “These are the runes we’ve been missing. We’ve waited generations to be able to dig into this,” he says via Nordic Science.

The 3.8 by 1.8 centimeters bone plate had been burnt and otherwise deteriorated after more than 1,000 years in the ground. (Image: Søren Sindbæk)

Find May Shed New Light on how Vikings Used Runes
By runes, historians describe the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets, which were used to write various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter. The Scandinavian variants are also known as futhark or fuþark. The earliest runic inscriptions date from around 150 AD. Archaeologists believe that runes changed drastically at the start of the Viking Age, but they are not sure – as there is not any clear evidence – exactly what standardized written (and even spoken) language looked like during that period, or even what the Vikings actually used runes for.

 The two new finds, however, double the number of runes from Ribe and increases the chance of archaeologists to understand their use better, “The new finds will help us in understanding the ways in which the Vikings used runes, and why they reinvented the art of writing," Sindbæk stated in an interview with IBTimes UK. And continued, "Was it developed as a tool for magic? For labeling property and other business in trading towns? Or for sending messages over long distances? This is hard to know if you only have a handful of inscriptions to go by, so even two more inscriptions makes a lot of difference."

Runes are engraved on both sides of the comb. One side has the verb ‘to comb’, the other has the noun, ‘comb’. (Image: Søren Sindbæk)

Runes Belonged to a Bronze Caster
Next, Sindbæk pinpointed that the discovery of the bone plate took place while he was excavating a small house that was known to have been a bronze foundry. At first, he could not understand what it was but soon the mystery was solved, “The engraving is so fine that you can’t immediately see the text, but I thought to myself, ‘what if it is an inscription?’ But then I thought, ‘no, that’s too optimistic,’” he said as Nordic Science reports. “It’s expertly crafted and we don’t find so many of its kind, so I couldn’t shake the idea. In the end I convinced myself that it had to be runes,” Sindbæk added, who was proven to be right.

  Text’s Hard to be Deciphered but Leaves Hope for the Future
Sindbæk explained that it was really hard for him and his colleagues to decipher the text as both ends were missing. Archaeologists don’t how big the original piece would have been, or in what context it was used. “A guess is that it was once part of a casket,” says Sindbæk via Nordic Science.

The text lacks certain features, which mark the beginning and end of each word. “Just like if we today wrote asentencewithoutanyspaces. It is decipherable, but difficult to read. But this does not mean that the work was sloppy. The runes were clearly etched by a steady hand with detail indicative of an experienced engraver,” Sindbæk told Nordic Science.

However, he’s being optimistic that the new finds will help him and his team to give answers to all these questions that have been unanswered for centuries, “These finds may help us in solving a famous enigma: why did people in a northern corner of Europe, often believed to be brutes and barbarians, invent and use their own alphabet?” he told IBTimes UK, demonstrating once again the incredible archaeological value of the new finds.

Top image: The comb was discovered in Ribe, West Denmark. (Source: sciencenordic Credit: Søren Sindbæk)

By Theodoros Karasavvas

Puzzling Medieval Runes Found on Stone in Norway

Ancient Origins

A rare find of a stone bearing engravings of runes that date back to the Middle Ages has been unearthed recently at an excavation near Oslo. The relic is a whetstone which was a tool used for sharpening knives. Oddly, this one has some symbols cut into it which have been recognized as being runic.

Medieval Symbols Are From Runic Writing
The whetstone, which was found during earthworks ahead of a railway-construction project in Oslo, Norway, is of polished slate and has been carved with ancient runes, reports LiveScience. It is only the second object of its type to be found anywhere in Norway, the other being found in Bergen on the west coast. Uncovering any items with runic inscriptions is a rare occurrence according to a statement by the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU), where the keen eyed archaeologist who picked out the special stone is based.

The spot where the runic whetstone appeared. Image: Khalil Olsen Holmen, NIKU.

 It was recovered from an area of the excavation dating from between AD 1050-1500, a time when Vikings were still dominant in Norway, as LiveScience reports. The runic writing system was used widely in Europe by Germanic language speakers as early as AD 150 and even up to AD 1100, although throughout this time Europe was gradually adopting the Latin alphabet due to the spread of Christianity in the region. After this time use of runes continued but was limited to certain purposes.

Text known as Codex runicus, a vellum manuscript from c. 1300 containing one of the oldest and best preserved texts of the Scanian law (Skånske lov), written entirely in runes. (Public Domain)

The three best-known runic alphabets are the Elder Futhark (around 150–800 AD), the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc (400–1100 AD), and the Younger Futhark (800–1100 AD). These related runic writing systems were used not only to record or communicate but were thought to be used to cast spells too, due to the link to the Old Norse word rún meaning ‘secret’.

It is not known who might have engraved the runes on this stone or for what purpose. Runes have been found on cliffs and large rocks, gravestone inscriptions, religious or magic inscriptions, trade communications such as stock orders or excuses for late payment of bills and even personal or love letters. They have also been used as simple graffiti or to sign craftwork.

Deciphering the Script
The runes on this whetstone are believed to date to about 1000 years ago. Shortly after this time, pretty much all everyday use of the script was lost to the Latin replacement.

In a similar fashion to the Latin system, the individual runes were like letters and could be combined to spell words. These words were often not well separated and so interpretation was necessary. The words were sometimes separated by dots, but this rule was not always followed. With this find, the archaeologists are uncertain of the translation but have make some steps towards an interpretation.

"On the whetstone, the runes 'æ, r, k, n, a' appear. But it is not easy to tell what they mean," the archaeologists with the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) said in their statement regarding the find. The runes could be an attempt to spell a person's name, or they could spell the word "scared," "ugly" or "pain," the archaeologists said.

This figure illustrates the runes. The meaning in this sequence is unknown. Credit: NIKU

“This is probably an unsuccessful attempt to write a name or another rather trivial inscription, but we can see that this is hardly a trained rune carver”, says Karen Holmqvist, a Ph.D. fellow at NIKU and a specialist in runes. It is evident that the standard of proficiency of the writing of the runes here is low. It is thought that the number of people who could use the system was limited ie. runic literacy levels generally were pretty low.

"The findings contribute to the perception that the art of runic writing was relatively widespread in medieval Norway. But many writers would probably find themselves [with a level of knowledge] where they knew about writing, but were not literate," the archaeologists said in the statement. The crude depiction of the runes and possible wrong ordering of the symbols has led to speculation that the rock could have been a learning tool upon which writing was being practiced.

“It is perhaps not that strange that we find some strange spellings and some mirrored runes.” commented Holmqvist about the standard of runic writing generally, “Just think how you yourself wrote when you were learning to write,” she proposed in the statement from NIKU.

 In an attempt derive clarification on the meaning from the enigmatic though seemingly amateur inscription, the team wrote a blog post, in Norwegian, which shares their own finding of the discovery and asks members of the public to contribute their thoughts on what the runes on this stone mean.

Top image: The engraved whetstone found in Oslo, Norway. Credit: Karen Langsholt Holmqvist/NIKU

By Gary Manners

8 Viking myths busted

History Extra

An image of Viking sailors making the voyage across the Atlantic between Europe and America. One sailor is seen wearing a horned helmet. In reality, says Janina Ramirez, Viking helmets would have been simple skullcaps. Painting by NC Wyeth, c1350. (Image by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Viking Age stretched from the ninth to the 11th century. During this time Viking culture had a huge impact on great swathes of Europe, Asia, Africa and even America – many centuries before Columbus sailed the oceans. They could navigate the known world and commanded respect wherever they went. Yet the Vikings are surrounded by myths. Here are eight of them busted…

 Myth 1: They wore horned helmets
Let’s get this out of the way straight off. There is no evidence that the Vikings wore horned helmets, and nothing like this has ever been discovered in any archaeological dig. They certainly wore helmets but they would have been simple skullcaps, designed to protect the head from impact. Having a pair of horns on your head in battle would not have been helpful if warriors were striking at you with clubs, swords or axes.

 The helmet plaques from Sutton Hoo and Vendel suggest that god-like warriors donned helmets with protruding ‘horns’ (although these are actually hook-beaked birds), but the Viking raiders and traders did not.

 The modern idea of Vikings in horned helmets originated in the 19th century, but it was Richard Wagner’s The Ring Cycle [a cycle of four operas by the German composer based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas] that seared it into the modern imagination. Costume designer Carl Emil Doepler (1824–1905) created horned helmets in the 1870s for the Viking characters, and so the myth was born. Numerous cartoonists, filmmakers and artists have continued this fantasy right up to the present day.

Detail of a Viking helmet from grave one at Vendel, Uppland, Sweden, 7th century. In the Swedish History Museum’s collection in Stockholm. (Photo by CM Dixon/Print Collector/Getty Images)

 Myth 2: They were a defined group – ‘The Vikings’
The term ‘Viking’ comes from Old Icelandic ‘Viking-r, a creek-dweller’. The Viken was the primary mercantile region of Norway, so it is possible that this apparently homogenous group of people got their name from the extensive trading they undertook out of their busy ports. The word ‘Viking’ later becomes synonymous with ‘naval raids/naval expeditions’ and begins to function more as a verb. Individuals or groups would go ‘a-Viking’, which would mean they would leave their native lands during the warmer summer months, travelling in longboats to regions where they could trade and raid.

 Contemporary writers don’t use the term ‘Viking’ to speak of a group of people. Instead they referred to Norse Men, people from the North, or simply pagans (remember, those recording events were usually Christian scribes). What’s more misleading still is that ‘Viking’ has been used to denote the entire Scandinavian region, including Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Each of these regions was governed by different leaders and they would have seen themselves as distinct from one another. 

These were also very varied landscapes. The more northern regions, particularly the mountainous areas of Norway, were difficult to farm because of hostile weather, while southern parts, in the plains of Denmark, were more fertile. There were occasions when Scandinavian rulers combined their forces for greater military might, but the term ‘Viking’ is like describing all ‘Northern Europeans’ as the same.

 Myth 3: They were extremely violent
The Vikings earned a place in history due to their protracted raids on often vulnerable monastic sites. Populated by literate scribes, these were the worst places to attack if you wanted a good record in Christian historical documents. Alcuin of York wrote to Bishop Higbald, declaring: “Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race. . . .The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets.”

 There is certainly evidence of the violent means Vikings used to suppress people, particularly in Britain. Many skeletons have been found with the instruments of their death still wedged in their bones. A skeleton in the North Hertfordshire Museum has a Viking spear head stuck in its neck. However, while some Vikings clearly deserved their reputation as ‘wolves of war’, others lived peaceful existences – farming, trading and integrating across the four continents that they settled. 

What’s more, these were violent times, and the Vikings’ aggression was matched or exceeded by other groups during this period. One of the most famous names of the early medieval period, Emperor Charlemagne, carried out a form of genocide on people in Saxony. In the ‘Massacre of Verden’ in AD 782 his army murdered more than 4,500 Saxons who had been given to him by an ally. This was violence at its most stark. And yet, because Charlemagne had a Christian biographer writing a favorable account of his life, was killing pagans and was seen as ‘father of the church’, his place in history was secure.

11th-century stained glass representing Emperor Charlemagne c800 in Saint-Saulge, France. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystine via Getty Images)

 Myth 4: They took what they wanted and sailed away
 Finds from Scandinavia do indicate that many Vikings pillaged the places they reached, bringing back coins from across the known world to be buried in hoards back in their homelands. However, many chose to remain in the lands they encountered, establishing lasting and important settlements. 

One of the earliest and most extensive Viking settlements was Dublin, established by AD 841. Dublin grew into an industrially strong city with a thriving port and a mint where the first Irish coins were made. It wasn’t just Dublin that changed and developed under the Vikings. In York, the Anglo-Saxon city was relocated further towards the mouth of the river and settled by Vikings as a new and vibrant town – Jorvik. Iceland owes its settlement almost entirely to Vikings, under Ingólfr Arnanson in AD 874.

 Normandy is another example of how Viking settlement could grow from violence into peaceful settlement. The Normans got their name from being ‘north-men’, yet they were given land in the north of France by king Charles III (aka Charles the Simple, 879–929) in an attempt to keep further Viking attacks at bay. Charles even gave his daughter to the Norwegian chieftain Rollo [who gained Normandy from Charles the Simple] in marriage, and the Viking settlers soon embraced French language and culture to develop into a new breed of conquerors.

Decorative Viking hoard cup made from gold and decorated with animals and foliate patterns. Found buried in England. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

 Myth 5: They were godless pagans
They say history is written by the victors, but in the case of the Vikings, history is written by Christians. This meant that while few accounts of Viking religion survive, there are many documents written by Christian scribes that describe them as pagan and godless. This is not supported by the information we can glean from archaeology and later Scandinavian texts.

 Viking religion was structured, hierarchical and based on a number of established narratives. It was not a religion of the book, and the mythology was transmitted orally. The Vikings didn’t practise their religion in temples but rather, like the ancient Celts, held places like groves and rivers sacred. It seems that priests were involved in religious ceremonies, and these were drawn from the heads of families. Priestly office was one of the honours bestowed on kings. The priest would perform sacrifices, either of objects, animals or people.

 Viking cosmology differentiated between life on Earth – Midgard – and other spiritual realms. The gods were thought to inhabit Asgard, while the sacred tree Ysgadrill stretched its roots to the lands of the gods, giants and the dead. There were at least six realms, with a special place reserved for warriors – Valhalla.

 Myth 6: They were ignorant and illiterate barbarians
The Vikings were not the ignorant and illiterate barbarians that Christian writers of the time believed them to be. While they didn’t write long texts like the Sagas until later in the Viking Age, they had developed a complex script – runes – that was loaded with symbolism. Each letter in the runic alphabet was also connected with a word; the ‘f’ rune was called ‘feoh’, which meant ‘wealth’ or ‘cattle’ – this makes sense within a barter society, as cattle hides were a way of measuring wealth. 

Runes could carry spiritual meaning too, and texts record how certain runes were connected with specific gods or goddesses. Rune stones included lengthy dedications and personal names. Smaller inscriptions survive on personal items like combs and weapons.

 Far from illiterate barbarians, the Vikings were some of the greatest naval engineers and travellers the world had seen. Prehistoric carvings and stone ships testify to the importance of boats within prehistoric Scandinavian society and religion. By the ninth century they had developed advanced ships that could traverse the hostile Northern Atlantic Ocean. They travelled further than any single race before the modern age, and took huge risks whenever they set out on a voyage.

Viking runestone. (Photo By DEA/G DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

 Myth 7: They treated their women badly
Viking society was mainly governed by ‘jarls’, the most important of whom could become kings. It was a largely military society, in which strength at arms was prized, yet wise and learned men and women could also wield power.

 Women played an important role in Viking society. They were guardians of the keys to both property and wealth, particularly when their menfolk were abroad. There is evidence that some were trained to be military leaders too, with shield-maidens described throughout the mythology. Women were held in high esteem, with two buried within the famous Oseberg ship.

 One of the most venerated characters in the Germanic pantheon was Freyja, goddess of sex, beauty, gold and death. She rides a chariot pulled by two cats and is accompanied by the boar Hildisvini.

 Women did seem to have spiritual roles within Viking society, with wands discovered in many female graves. Furthermore, they had significantly better legal rights than their Christian counterparts and could divorce their husbands if they were violent or disrespectful towards them.

 Myth 8: They were beardy and unkempt
Far from unkempt barbarians, Viking men and women were quite vain. Many finds like tweezers, combs and razors have been discovered, and it seems they went to great pains over their appearance. 

They didn’t live in dark, dirty huts, but often in large and luxurious halls, like the magnificent ‘Heorot’ recorded in the epic poem Beowulf, which was the setting for lavish feasts, gifts of gold and display of skills at arms.

Viking period bone and deer antler comb and case from the Viking settlement at York, which is in the Yorkshire Museum, York. (Photo by CM Dixon/Print Collector/Getty Images)

 The Vikings also had a good diet, which included a lot of fish – unsurprising given that most settlements were near to the coast. Evidence of Viking latrines shows they feasted on elk, bear, puffin, salmon and trout.

 Dr Janina Ramirez is a British art and cultural historian and television presenter. She presented a BBC documentary on Icelandic literature, The Viking Sagas, and is author of The Private Lives of the Saints: Power, Passion and Politics in Anglo-Saxon England. To find out more, visit www.janinaramirez.co.uk

Ancient Viking code deciphered for the first time

 

Runologist cracks the mysterious jötunvillur code – and discovers medieval 'text messages'

Alison Flood

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/12/ancient-viking-code-deciphered-runologist-jotunvillur

Mystery nosed out ... Fragment of wooden stick with runic inscription on one side found at the old wharf in Bergen. The text is written using a code where the number of 'hairs' in the beards of each face indicate the position of the character in the runic alphabet. Museum of cultural history, University of Oslo. Aslak Liestol Photograph: Aslak Liestol/Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo

An ancient Norse code which has been puzzling experts for years has been cracked by a Norwegian runologist - to discover the Viking equivalent of playful text messages.
The mysterious jötunvillur code, which dates to 12th or 13th-century Scandinavia, has been unravelled by K Jonas Nordby from the University of Oslo, after he studied a 13th-century stick on which two men, Sigurd and Lavrans, had carved their name in both code and in standard runes. The jötunvillur code is found on only nine inscriptions, from different parts of Scandinavia, and has never been interpreted before.
"The thing that solved it for me was seeing these two old Norse names, Sigurd and Lavrans, and after each of them was this combination of runes which made no sense," said Nordby, who is writing his doctorate on cryptography in runic inscriptions from the Viking Age and the Scandinavian Middle Ages. He then realised, he continued, that in jötunvillur, the rune sign is swapped for the last sound in the rune's name, so for example the "m" rune, maðr, would be written as the rune for "r".
"I thought 'wow, this is the system, this is the solution, now we can read this text," said Nordby. But the code turned out to be extremely confusing, because many runes end in the same sound, "so you have to decide which one to choose".
So far, what he calls his "Rosetta stone", which was found at Bergen wharf, is the only place in which it is possible to be sure what the jötunvillur code says, although he believes another rune stick may well have been inscribed with the name Thorstein, and another with the name Einar.
The sticks on which the code has been written, said Nordby, are "everyday objects, so you often find names on them, either because they used them to communicate that it was something they wanted to keep or sell, or for practising writing, or because they were talking about people so names occur frequently".
Many rune sticks have been excavated in Scandinavia, dating back to the 1100s and 1200s, he said. Just a few use codes, and even fewer use the jötunvillur code. "They were used to communicate, like the SMSes of the Middle Ages – they were for frequent messages which had validity in the here and now," he said. "Maybe a message to a wife, or a transaction."
One, from Sweden, uses a simpler code, using numbers to indicate runes, and is believed to say "kiss me". Another, from the Orkneys, says "these runes are written by the most skilled rune writer west of the sea"; the writer is "obviously showing off", said Nordby. Often, the code exhorts the reader to "interpret this if you can".
"The problem is, if you can't interpret the code, you can't understand you should be interpreting it, so the code itself is the obstacle," said Nordby.
He believes the codes – particularly jötunvillur – could have been used for education. "It seems more and more clear that coded runes were not for keeping secrets, not for sensitive communications such as during the second world war, or like for today's secure communications. But that actually, they were used to get to know the alphabet, or rune names," said Nordby. "What if codes were used like a game, playing with a system? With jötunvillur, you had to learn the names of runes, so I think codes were used in teaching, in learning to write and read runes."
Henrik Williams, a Swedish expert on runes from Uppsala University, hailed the discovery. "Above all, it helps us understand that there were more codes than we were aware of. Each runic inscription we interpret raises our hopes of soon being able to read more. This is pure detective work and each new method improves our chances," he told Science Nordic.
Williams agreed that the codes could have had an educational use, and were not just used for communication. "They challenged the reader, demonstrated skills, and testify to a joy in reading and writing," he said. " We come closer to the thoughts of people living at the time through understanding their codes. Nordby has made an important discovery by breaking the code."
Williams added to the Guardian: "The specific code of jötunvillur is obviously more entertaining than useful, although it brings to the fore the playfulness exhibited by many rune carvers, also an important discovery."
The author Joanne Harris, whose new novel The Gospel of Loki is set in the world of Norse mythology, also called Nordby's discovery "very, very interesting". Commenting on the Swedish rune code, she speculated that the runes could have a "magical/hidden significance; in this case, perhaps a love spell".