The Björketorp Runestone ( DR 360 U) in

Blekinge Blekinge (, old da, Bleking) is one of the traditional Swedish provinces (), situated in the southern coast of the geographic region of Götaland, in southern Sweden. It borders Småland, Scania and the Baltic Sea. It is the country's second ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, is part of a grave field which includes

menhir A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be foun ...

s, both solitary and forming

stone circles A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The b ...

. It is one of the world's tallest

runestone A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition began in the 4th century and lasted into the 12th century, but most of the runestones da ...

s measuring 4.2 metres in height, and it forms an imposing sight together with two high uninscribed menhirs.

Inscription

The

rune Runes are the letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, a ...

s were made in the 6th or the 7th century and in

Proto-Norse Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic, Ancient Scandinavian, Ancient Norse, Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Proto-Scandinavian and Proto-North Germanic) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a ...

(a similar message is given on the

Stentoften Runestone The Stentoften Runestone, listed in the Rundata catalog as DR 357, is a runestone which contains a curse in Proto-Norse that was discovered in Stentoften, Blekinge, Sweden. Inscription Transliteration :AP niuhAborumz ¶ niuhagestumz ¶ hAþuwol ...

). It is found on two sides. The shorter message appears to say "I foresee perdition" or "prediction of perdition". The message of the other side is also debated. *A: hAidz runo ronu fAlAhAk hAiderA ginArunAz ArAgeu hAerAmAlAusz utiAz welAdAude sAz þAt bArutz *B: uþArAbA sbA Transcription: *A Haidz runo runu, falh'k hedra ginnarunaz. Argiu hermalausz, ... weladauþe, saz þat brytz. *B Uþarba spa. Translation: *A I, master of the runes(?) conceal here runes of power. Incessantly (plagued by) maleficence, (doomed to) insidious death (is) he who breaks this (monument). *B I prophesy destruction / prophecy of destruction. Swedish: ”Mäktiga runors hemlighet dolde jag här, kraftfulla runor. Den som bryter detta minnesmärke skall ständigt plågas av arghet. Svekfull död ska träffa honom. Jag spår fördärv”.

Analysis

Most scholars date the inscription to the 7th century and it is carved with a type of runes that form an intermediate version between the

Elder Futhark The Elder Futhark (or Fuþark), also known as the Older Futhark, Old Futhark, or Germanic Futhark, is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a writing system used by Germanic peoples for Northwest Germanic dialects in the Migration Peri ...

and the

Younger Futhark The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet and a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, with only 16 characters, in use from about the 9th century, after a "transitional period" during the 7th and 8th centuries. The r ...

. A characteristic example of this is the a-rune which has the same form as the h-rune of the younger futhark. This is the rune that is transliterated with A. The k-rune, which looks like a Y is a transition form between and in the two futharks. There are quite a few intermediary inscriptions like this one. Three more are known from

, i.e. the

, the

Istaby Runestone The Istaby Runestone, listed in the Rundata catalog as DR 359, is a runestone with an inscription in Proto-Norse which was raised in Istaby, Blekinge, Sweden, during the Vendel era (c. 550-790). Inscription Transliteration into Latin character ...

and the

Gummarp Runestone The Gummarp Runestone, designated as DR 358, was a runestone from the Vendel era and which was located in the former village of Gummarp in the province of Blekinge, Sweden. Description The Gummarp Runestone was removed and taken to Copenhagen, w ...

, which was moved to

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

and lost in the

Copenhagen Fire of 1728 The Copenhagen Fire of 1728 was the largest fire in the history of Copenhagen, Denmark. It began on the evening of 20 October 1728 and continued to burn until the morning of 23 October. It destroyed approximately 28% of the city (measured by cou ...

The Stentoften, Istaby and Gummarp inscriptions can be identified with the same clan through the names that are mentioned on them, and the names are typical for chieftains. The Björketorp Runestone lacks names and is raised some tens of km from the others. However, it is beyond doubt that the Björketorp runestone is connected to them, because in addition to the special runic forms, the same message is given on the Stentoften Runestone. The runestones were not carved by the same man, and so it appears that the runestone reflects a specific tradition in

during the 7th century. Compared to the Stentoften inscription, the one on the Björketorp stone has a fuller, more formal and less archaic style.Schulte 2008:17. Scholars are not in agreement on the purpose of the runestone. It has been suggested that the runestone is a grave and that the curse is intended to protect it. However, in 1914, there were archaeological excavations which did not present any finds either by the runestone or in the stone circle. To counter this, it has been suggested that the runestone is a

Cenotaph A cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although the vast majority of cenot ...

, i.e. a memorial far from the real burial. A second suggestion is that it was a shrine for

Odin Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered Æsir, god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, v ...

or for fertility. A third suggestion is that the runestone marks a border between the Swedes and the

Daner The Danes were a North Germanic tribe inhabiting southern Scandinavia, including the area now comprising Denmark proper, and the Scanian provinces of modern-day southern Sweden, during the Nordic Iron Age and the Viking Age. They founded what b ...

Citations

References

*Barddal, Jóhanna: Björketorpstenens "utiar weladaude". Sydsvenska ortnamnssällskapets årsskrift 1998. pp. 7–16. *Jacobsen, Lis & Moltke, Erik: Danmarks runeindskrifter. 1941. *Schulte, Michael. 2008. Stylistic variation in runic inscriptions? ''ANF'' 123:5-22. *Thorngren, Karl-Gösta: Runstenar i Blekinge. Blekingeboken 1942. pp. 63–96.

External links

A scholarly presentation by Foteviken

The Swedish National Heritage Board
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bjorketorp Runestone 6th-century inscriptions 7th-century inscriptions Runestones with curses Haþuwulf's runestones Proto-Norse language Runestones in Blekinge

Inscription

Analysis

See also

Citations

References

External links