There were probably two Gunnar's bridge runestones at Kullerstad, which is about one kilometre northeast of

Skärblacka Skärblacka is a locality situated in Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with 4,059 inhabitants in 2010. In everyday use, the town is known as simply ''Blacka''. Until 1971, the town was the administrative centre of Skärblac ...

Östergötland County Östergötland County () is a county or '' län'' in southeastern Sweden. It has land borders with the counties of Kalmar to the southeast, Jönköping to the southwest, Örebro to the northwest, and Södermanland to the northeast. It also has a ...

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, which is in the historic province of

Östergötland Östergötland (; English exonym: East Gothland) is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish) in the south of Sweden. It borders Småland, Västergötland, Närke, Södermanland and the Baltic Sea. In older English li ...

, where a man named Håkon dedicated a bridge to the memory of his son Gunnar. The second stone was discovered in a church only 500 metres away and is raised in the cemetery. The second stone informs that Håkon raised more than one stone in memory of his son and that the son died ''vestr'' or "in the West."

Ög 162

The inscription on this stone, which is 1.6 metres in height, consists of a

Christian cross The Christian cross, seen as representing the crucifixion of Jesus, is a religious symbol, symbol of Christianity. It is related to the crucifix, a cross that includes a ''corpus'' (a representation of Jesus' body, usually three-dimensional) a ...

above an arching runic text band and a second partial interior band. The design of the inscription is similar to that of Ög Fv1970;310, and it is believed that they originally formed a coupled monument and were carved by the same

runemaster A runemaster or runecarver is a specialist in making runestones. Description More than 100 names of runemasters are known from Viking Age Sweden with most of them from 11th-century eastern Svealand.The article ''Runristare'' in ''Nationalencyklo ...

.Svärdström 1970:310-311. The runic text on both stones indicates that Hákon constructed a bridge as a memorial to his son Gunnarr, who died ''vestr'' or "in the West." Although the messages of most runestones are formulaic, some of them convey the sadness of those who raised them in memory of lost family members, like this runestone.Larsson 2002:148-149.

Ög Fv1970;310

This runestone was found in the exterior wall of the church of Kullerstad in 1969 and is raised in the cemetery. It informs that Håkon raised more than one memorial for his son and that he died in the West. This runestone is discussed in further detail in the article

Viking runestones The Viking runestones are runestones that mention Scandinavians who participated in Vikings, Viking expeditions. This article treats the runestone that refer to people who took part in voyages abroad, in western Europe, and stones that mention men ...

under Ög Fv1970;310.

Gallery

File:Ög 162, Kullerstads bro.jpg, Drawing of Ög 162 published in 1857. File:Kullerstads kyrka, den 21 december 2008, bild 12.JPG, The church at Kullerstad in 2008.

Notes

Sources

*Larsson, Mats G. (2002). ''Götarnas Riken : Upptäcktsfärder Till Sveriges Enande''. Bokförlaget Atlantis AB * *
Kulturarv Östergötland
a site maintained by the County Museum of Östergötland.

External links

An English Dictionary of Runic Inscriptions of the Younger Futhark, at the university of Nottingham
1969 archaeological discoveries Runestones in memory of Viking warriors Runestones in Östergötland {{runestones