The Hogganvik runestone is a fifth-century

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 ...

, bearing an

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 ...

inscription, that was discovered in September 2009 by Arnfinn Henriksen, a resident of Hogganvik, in the Sånum-Lundevik area of

Mandal A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluka, or taluk) is a local unit of administrative division in some countries of South Asia. It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administr ...

Vest-Agder Vest-Agder (; "West Agder") was one of 18 counties (''fylker'') in Norway up until 1 January 2020, when it was merged with Aust-Agder to form Agder county. In 2016, there were 182,701 inhabitants, around 3.5% of the total population of Norway. I ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

, while working in the garden.

Description

The Hogganvik runestone is a stone slab of about , weighing approximately . It was lying face down and the

runic inscription A runic inscription is an inscription made in one of the various runic alphabets. They generally contained practical information or memorials instead of magic or mythic stories. The body of runic inscriptions falls into the three categories of El ...

is therefore well preserved. The inscription, which is 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 ...

, can be approximately dated to between 350 and 500 CE and consists of 62 characters, one a bind-rune. This is an exceptionally long text for the early period, either the second longest after that of the

Tune stone The Tune stone is an important runestone from about 200–450 AD. It bears runes of the Elder Futhark, and the language is Proto-Norse. It was discovered in 1627 in the church yard wall of the church in Tune, Østfold, Norway. Today it is house ...

(known since 1627), or possibly the third; the inscription on the Rö stone has missing and illegible runes. A report was issued in October 2009 by

runologist Runology is the study of the Runic alphabets, Runic inscriptions and their history. Runology forms a specialized branch of Germanic linguistics. History Runology was initiated by Johannes Bureus (1568–1652), who was very interested in the lingu ...

James E. Knirk, and provides a transliteration of the inscription.

Text

;Original runes # # # # //() ;Raw transliteration # # # # //()

Interpretation

# Skelba-þewaz’s Shaking-servant’s" (personal name)stone (grave) monumentaaasrpkf (a meaningless sequence of letters used as an incantation). # I the rune carver m calledNaudigastiz "Need-guest" (personal name) (name of the Runecarver) # I, icknamedthe Wolverine. # aarpaa (a non meaningful sequence of letters used as an incantation) ?Within/From within the ?wheel-nave/?cabin-corner r: ?needle (Place) The stone is a memorial. The meaningless sequences, with the repeated ''a'' runes, may be alphabet magic. The fourth line is hard to interpret. The middle two lines name the carver of the runes.

Archaeological investigation

In May 2010 an archaeological investigation was carried out. The face of the stone with the inscription was shown to be more weathered than the underside, indicating it had been raised over a grave, and a large

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

burial was found under the site, but was not excavated.

References

External links

* * {{Coord, 58, 2, 15.187, N, 7, 21, 53.856, E, region:NO-10_type:landmark, display=title Mandal, Norway 5th-century inscriptions Runestones in Norway Proto-Norse language 2009 archaeological discoveries Elder Futhark inscriptions