The Björketorp Runestone ( DR 360 U) in

Blekinge Blekinge () 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-smallest provin ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. It is one of the world's tallest

runestone A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic alphabet, runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition of erecting runestones as a memorial to dead men began in the 4th centur ...

s measuring 4.2 metres in height.

Inscription

The

rune Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows, runic alphabets or futharks (also, see '' futhark'' vs ''runic alphabet''), native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were primarily used to represent a sound value (a ...

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

Proto-Norse Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic; Danish and ; ; ; ) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic in the first centuries CE. It is the earliest stage of a c ...

(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 English translation provided by Rundata: Inte ...

). 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. Swedish: "".

Menhirs

The runestone is paired with two high uninscribed

menhir A menhir (; from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large upright stone, emplaced in the ground by humans, typically dating from the European middle Br ...

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 Per ...

and the Younger Futhark. 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 (–790). Inscription Interpretation The Istaby, Stentoften ...

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, ...

, which was moved to

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

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 the 23rd of October 1728. It destroyed approximately 28% of the city (me ...

. 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 grave, tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere or have been lost. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although t ...

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

Odin Odin (; from ) is a widely revered god in Norse mythology and Germanic paganism. Most surviving information on Odin comes from Norse mythology, but he figures prominently in the recorded history of Northern Europe. This includes the Roman Em ...

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, northern and eastern England, and the Scanian provinces of modern-day southern Sweden, during the Nordic Iron Age and the Vi ...

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