Rune stone

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A rune stone

Rune stones are somewhat flat standing stones with runic stone carvings from the Iron Age (Viking Age) and early middle ages found in most parts of Scandinavia. Gotland, the largest island in the Baltic, still contains many rune stones. The inscriptions are made in different dialectal variants of the Old Norse language.

The majority of these stones date after the introduction of Christianity; they often include the Christian cross and use the younger futhark. But older stones are pagan Norse and use the older futhark. Their inscriptions are the oldest written source texts created in the Nordic countries and some give a few clues about mythology and the society in Scandinavia at this time. Numbers are written out in text, i.e. "123" is "onehundredtwentythree", since the Indo-Arabic numerals were not yet employed. Years are counted through father generations, or the number of elapsed winters.

Most stones are put up as memorials for a dead person: in many cases death caused by sudden and unexpected events. These typically have an inscription of the type: "X had this stone carved for Y, a great man, God help his soul. Z carved it". Other stones are put up as landmarks. Several stones have obviously been erected by women.

The largest of the image stones from the parish of Ardre, Gotland, ca 750 AD

Several inscriptions include works of art, for example, the runes may be inscribed inside a serpent-like creature, and some stones ("image stones") found on Gotland contain artistic imagery without any runes.

When the stones were carved, the runic letters were also painted with some color, mostly red (based on archaeological analysis), so they would be easily visible. Newly discovered stones often lack this color because of erosion, but caretakers nowadays make sure they are repainted and readable.

Famous rune stones and image stones from Gotland

The R�k Stone
The Austers Hangvar Stone
The Halla Bora stone
The Husaby Stone
The Hogr�n Stone
The Klinte Stone
The Kylver Rune Stone
The Martebo Stones
The Pilgards Rune Stone, Boge
The Sanda Stones
The Sjonhem Stone
The Stenkjyrka Stone, Lillebj�rs
The Stora Hammars Stone and the T�garda Rune Stone, L�rbro parish
The Timans Rune Stone
The T�ngvida Stone
The Adre stones, which were desecrated by the Christians and re-used as paving under the wooden floors of the local church, which ironically preserved them. When the church was restored about 1900, ten rune stones and picture stones (illustrated above, left) were found under the wooden floor, and are now preserved in the National Museum of Antiquities, Stockholm.