Visäte (

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

: ''Víseti'', ''Véseti'') was a

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 ...

who was active during the last half of the eleventh century in southern

Uppland Uppland is a historical province or ' on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. The name literally ...

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 ...

Work

Most early medieval Scandinavians were probably literate in

runes Runes are the Letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows, runic alphabets or futharks (also, see ''#Futharks, futhark'' vs ''#Runic alphabets, runic alphabet''), native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were ...

, and most people probably carved messages on pieces of bone and wood.
Vilka kunde rista runor?
'' on the

Swedish National Heritage Board The Swedish National Heritage Board (; RAÄ) is a Swedish government agency responsible for World Heritage Sites and other national heritage monuments and historical environments. It is governed by the Ministry of Culture. The goals of the agen ...

website, retrieved 3 March 2015. However, it was difficult to make runestones, and in order to master it one also needed to be a

stonemason Stonemasonry or stonecraft is the creation of buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone as the primary material. Stonemasonry is the craft of shaping and arranging stones, often together with mortar and even the ancient lime mortar ...

. During the 11th century, when most runestones were raised, there were a few professional runemasters. The runemaster Visäte is known for his inscriptions which are classified as being carved in

runestone style :''The term "runestone style" in the singular may refer to the Urnes style.'' The style or design of runestones varied during the Viking Age. The early runestones were simple in design, but towards the end of the runestone era they became increas ...

s Pr3 and Pr4, which is also known as the

Urnes style Viking art, also known commonly as Norse art, is a term widely accepted for the art of Scandinavian Norsemen and Vikings, Viking settlements further afield—particularly in the British Isles and Iceland—during the Viking Age of the 8th-11th ...

. Inscriptions in runestone style Pr3 and Pr4 are characterized by slim and stylized animals that are interwoven into tight patterns. The animal heads are typically seen in profile with slender almond-shaped eyes and upwardly curled appendages on the noses and the necks. Uppland's longest runic inscription, runestone U 337 in Granby, has Visäte's signature. Seven other surviving

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 that are signed by Visäte include U 74 in Husby, U 208 in Råcksta, U 236 in Lindö, U 454 in Kumla, U 669 in Kålsta, U 862 in Säva, and U Fv1946;258 in Fällbro.

Rundata The Scandinavian Runic-text Database () is a project involving the creation and maintenance of a database of transliterated runic inscriptions. The project's goal is to comprehensively catalog runestones in a machine-readable way for future resea ...

lists over twenty additional runestones that have been attributed to him based on stylistic analysis.

Gallery

Image:U 73, Hägerstalund.jpg,

U 73 U73 may refer to: * * Great rhombidodecahedron * , a sloop of the Royal Australian Navy * Small nucleolar RNA SNORD73 * Uppland Runic Inscription 73 * U73, a line of the Düsseldorf Stadtbahn {{Disambiguation ...

, one of the

Greece Runestones The Greece runestones () are about 30 runestones containing information related to voyages made by Norsemen to the Byzantine Empire. They were made during the Viking Age until about 1100 and were engraved in the Old Norse language with Younger ...

, is attributed to Visäte. Image:Lr20040001s.jpg, The

Granby Runestone The Granby Runestone (Swedish: ''Granbyhällen''), designated as U 337 under the Rundata catalog, is one of the longest Viking Age runic inscriptions located in Uppland, Sweden. Description The Granby Runestone has a runic inscription carved on ...

, U 337, the longest runic inscription in

, was made by Visäte. Drawing by Peringskiöld. Image:U 614, Torsätra.jpg, The Torsätra runestone, U 614, is attributed to Visäte. Image:Upplands runinskrifter Fv1946;258.jpg, Uppland Runic Inscription Fv1946;258 is signed by Visäte.

References

Other sources

*The article ''Visäte'' in ''

Nationalencyklopedin (; "The National Encyclopedia" in English), abbreviated NE, is a comprehensive contemporary Swedish-language encyclopedia with several hundred thousand articles. It is available both online and via a printed version. History The project was ...

'' (1996). {{DEFAULTSORT:Visate Runemasters Swedish artists 11th-century Swedish people