The Sigtuna box is a copper box from Sigtuna,

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 ...

, which was engraved with a

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 ...

in the early 11th century. The box not only tells of trading across the

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, it is also engraved with an

Old Norse poem Old Norse poetry encompasses a range of verse forms written in Old Norse, during the period from the 8th century (see Eggjum stone) to as late as the far end of the 13th century. Most of the Old Norse poetry that survives was preserved in Iceland ...

dróttkvætt In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of a ...

, the lordly meter which was used when

skald A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: , later ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditionally ...

s praised lords and kings. The poem talks of thieves being devoured by ravens.

Discovery

The box was discovered in August 1911, when an upholsterer was digging at the bank of lake

Mälaren Mälaren ( , , or ), historically referred to as Lake Malar in English, is the third-largest freshwater lake in Sweden (after Vänern and Vättern). Its area is 1,140 km2 and its greatest depth is 64 m. Mälaren spans 120 kilometers from e ...

. The finder reported it to have been filled with a heavy substance like coarse wet coffee-grounds,Friesen 1912, p.6 and which was probably made up of small pieces of metal. The substance was kept inside a cloth which quickly disintegrated as soon as he touched it. The content, which weighed about , was unfortunately thrown away, but the box was sent to the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities where the runic inscription was discovered.Friesen 1912, p.7

Description and use

The box measures across on the outside and the space inside measures to . The thickness of the metal is on average . From top to bottom, it measures . The box was used by a merchant to keep a small pair of scales for weighing silver and gold. More than 100 similar scales have been found in Birka, Sigtuna's predecessor as emporia, and they were a merchant's insignia,Jansson 1987, p.56 and his most important equipment.Jesch 2001, p.65

Inscription

Latin transliteration and transcription:

Prose part (A)

The first part of the inscription contains the merchant's name ''Diarfr'' and informs of how he acquired the box and its contents, but it does not give any precise information on from where he got his scales. The adjective ''semskR'' is ambiguous and the phrase ''af semskum manni'' can both mean that the man came from Sambia and from Zemgale.

Poetry part (B)

The second part of the inscription contains a couplet in the

ic metre known as ''dróttkvætt''. Here follows Jansson's transcription and translation (1987): The word ''velva'' is in the accusative case and it is probably the same word as the Gothic ("robber"). ''Nas gaukR'' is a kenning for raven which literally means "corpse's cuckoo,"Jansson 1987, p.133 and a comparable expression known from Old Icelandic poems is ''hræva gaukr'' ("carrion's cuckoo"). The idea that a dead thief should be food for ravens is also in agreement with poetic imagery from the Göksholm runestone and the

Rök runestone The Rök runestone ( sv, Rökstenen; Ög 136) is one of the most famous runestones, featuring the longest known runic inscription in stone. It can now be seen beside the church in Rök, Ödeshög Municipality, Östergötland, Sweden. It is cons ...

where ravens and wolves feast on the slain.Jansson 1987, p.134 (For the symbolism of the raven in Viking culture, see the Raven banner.)

Notes

References

*Friesen, O. von (1912). ''Runinskrifterna på en koppardosa funnen i Sigtuna, augusti 1911'', in Ekhoff, E. (ed) ''Fornvännen årgång 7'

pp. 6-19. *Jansson, S. B. F. (1987), ''Runes in Sweden'', *Jesch, J. (2001).
Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse
'. Boydell Press. {{ISBN, 0-85115-826-9. *

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 ...

2.0 11th-century inscriptions 1911 archaeological discoveries Runic inscriptions Medieval European metalwork objects Sigtuna Municipality 11th century in Sweden Containers Collection of the Swedish History Museum