The Tjurkö Bracteates, listed by

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 ...

as DR BR75 and DR BR76, are two bracteates (medals or amulets) found on Tjurkö, Eastern Hundred, Blekinge,

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 ...

, bearing

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 ...

runic inscriptions in Proto-Norse.

Description

The Tjurkö bracteates were discovered in 1817 near Tjurkö when cultivating, for the first time, a field on a stony hill.Montelius & Lindberg (1869:49). The bracteates were found in the roots of the grass among the rocks. Also discovered with the bracteates was a gold coin of the Emperor Theodosius II of the Eastern Roman Empire that has been dated to 443 AD. The Tjurkö 1 bracteate is dated to the Germanic Iron Age between 400 and 650 AD and is now at the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities (SHM 1453:25). It is a typical C-bracteate, similar to the Vadstena bracteate, and shows a stylized head in the center above a horse and beneath a bird. This

iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...

is usually interpreted as depicting an early form of the Norse pagan god

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 ...

with his associated animals, a horse and a raven.

Inscription

Tjurkö 1 bracteate

The inscription of the Tjurkö 1 bracteate (DR BR75, IK184) reads: : Transliteration: :wurte runoz an walhakurne heldaz kunimundiuProject Samnordisk Runtextdatabas Svensk
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entry for DR BR75. Proto-Norse transcription: :''Wurte runoz an walhakurne Heldaz Kunimundiu'' English translation: :Heldaz wrought runes on 'the foreign grain' for Kunimunduz. There is a consensus that ''walha-kurne'' is a compound word referring to the bracteate itself, and that ''

walha ''Walhaz'' is a reconstructed Proto-Germanic word meaning 'foreigner', or more specifically 'Roman', 'Romance-speaker' or '(romanized) Celt', and survives in English as 'Welsh'. The term was used by the ancient Germanic peoples to describe inha ...

'' (cognate with Modern English ''Welsh'') means "foreign, non-Germanic" - here perhaps more specifically "Roman" or "Gallic." However, differing explanations have been proposed for the second element ''kurne''. According to one interpretation, ''kurne'' is the dative singular of ''kurna'' (cognate with Modern English ''corn''), and ''walha-kurne'' "Roman or Gallic grain" is a kenning for "gold;" cf. the compounds ''valhöll'', ''valrauðr'' and ''valbaugar'' in the Old Norse poem Atlakviða.Looijenga (2003:42, 109). This may refer to the melting of solidi as source of the gold for the bracteate. An alternative interpretation of the second element sees ''kurne'' as an early loan from Latin ''corona'' " crown," but this is now considered to be unlikely since "crowns" as currency appear only in medieval times, from images of crowns minted on the coins' faces. The personal name ''Heldaz'' is derived from ''*held-'' "battle" (

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

''hild'', Old Norse ''hildr'', etc.), while ''Kunimundiu'' (dative singular of Kunimunduz) is from ''kuni-'' "kin" (which appears with connotations of royalty as the first element of

compounds, cf. Modern English '' king'') and ''mund-'' "protection."

Tjurkö 2 bracteate

The Tjurkö 2 bracteate (DR BR76, IK185) is dated to the same period and has an inscription of just three runes that read ota, which translates as "fear."Project Samnordisk Runtextdatabas Svensk - Rundata entry for DR BR76. This formulistic word is also used on other bracteates such as DR IK55 (Fjärestad), DR IK152 (unknown location in Skåne), and DR IK578 (Gadegård).

Notes

References

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External links

Danske Brakteater
Arild Hauge website
Tjurkö 1 bracteate - Map and RundataPhotograph of Tjurkö 2 bracteate
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tjurko bracteate Bracteates Elder Futhark inscriptions Proto-Norse language Individual items of jewellery