The Egtved Runestone or DR 37 is a

Viking Age The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Ger ...

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 ...

engraved in

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

with 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 ...

runic alphabet Runes are the 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, and for specialised ...

. It was discovered in 1863, by a master mason named Anders Nielsen from Starup, in the southern part of the cemetery of

Egtved Egtved is a village with a population of 2,446 (as of 1 January 2022) near Vejle, Denmark in Vejle municipality in the Denmark, Danish Region of Southern Denmark. Nearby is Tørskind Gravel Pit, a sculpture park. The village has a Romanesque arc ...

church.Danske Runeindskrifter, Nationalmuseet
accessed December 30, 2020. It is dated to the period 900–1020. The stone is in

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

and measures 80 cm in height, 55 cm in width and 43 cm in thickness. The style of the runestone is the runestone style RAK.Scandinavian Runic-text Database
-

Rundata The Scandinavian Runic-text Data Base ( sv, Samnordisk runtextdatabas) is a project involving the creation and maintenance of a database of runic inscriptions. The project's goal is to comprehensively catalog runestones in a machine-readable way f ...

. In an article

Lis Jacobsen Elisabeth (Lis) Jacobsen, née Rubin, (29 January 1882 - 18 June 1961) was a Danish philologist, archaeologist and writer. She is remembered first and foremost for her research and publications on the history of the Danish language but she was al ...

(Jacobsen 1935: 185–94) discussed possible interpretations that were not included in the standard work ''Danmarks Runeindskrifter 1941-42''. She pointed out that the phrase "brōðiʀ æft brōður" and "stæinn sāsi" connect the inscription to a group of warrior band inscriptions, i.e. the

Hällestad Runestones The Hällestad Runestones are three runestones located in the walls of Hällestad Church in Torna-Hällestad, about 20 kilometers east of Lund in Skåne, southern Sweden. Their Rundata identifiers are DR 295, 296, and 297. DR 295 is notable becau ...

and the

Sjörup Runestone The Sjörup Runestone is a runestone in Scania, Sweden, from approximately 1000 AD that is classified as being in runestone style RAK. The Karlevi Runestone, the Egtved Runestone and the Hällestad Runestones may be connected to it. History T ...

, which are connected to the

Jomsvikings The Jomsvikings were purportedly a legendary order of Viking mercenaries or conquerors of the 10th and 11th centuries. Though reputed to be staunchly dedicated to the worship of the Old Norse gods, they would allegedly fight for any lord who ...

and the legendary

Battle of the Fýrisvellir A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...

Uppland Uppland () is a historical province or ' on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. On the small uninhab ...

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 ...

.Enoksen 1998:113 However, the inscription is challenging to read and Jacobsen's interpretation is rather uncertain. Jacobsen suggests that the runes suiu refer to the location Svia in Vaksala parish, Uppland, Sweden; an interpretation that is contested (Peterson 2007: 321). However, the '' Scandinavian Runic-text Database'' accepts Jacobsen's analysis and does not add a question mark to it, as can be seen below.

Inscription

Transliteration of the runes into Latin characters : ... ... ...at ' fai(n) (t)u ÷ i suiu ' raist ¶ ... ...uþiʀ ' aft ' bruþur ¶ stain ' sasi ' skarni ' ... Old Norse transcription: : ' English translation: : "... ... ... (the) Coloured, (who) died in Svía. Raised ... brother in memory of brother. This stone ... ... "

References

Sources

*Enoksen, Lars Magnar. (1998). ''Runor : historia, tydning, tolkning''. Historiska Media, Falun. *Jacobsen, Lis (1935): Syv runestenstolkninger Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie 1935 p. 167-224. København Runestones in Denmark Runestones in memory of Viking warriors Jomsvikings {{Runestones

Inscription

See also

References

Sources