Elder Futhark
Encyclopedia
The Elder Futhark is the oldest form of the runic alphabet
Runic alphabet
The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter...

, used by Germanic tribes for Northwest Germanic
Northwest Germanic
Northwest Germanic is a proposed grouping of the Germanic dialects, representing the current consensus among Germanic historical linguists. It does not challenge the late 19th-century tri-partite division of the Germanic dialects into North Germanic, West Germanic and East Germanic, but proposes...

 and Migration period
Migration Period
The Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions , was a period of intensified human migration in Europe that occurred from c. 400 to 800 CE. This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...

 Germanic dialects of the 2nd to 8th centuries for inscriptions on artifacts such as jewellery, amulets, tools, weapons and runestones. In Scandinavia, the script was simplified to the Younger Futhark
Younger Futhark
The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet, a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, consisting of only 16 characters, in use from ca. 800 CE...

 from the late 8th century, while the Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...

 and Frisians
Frisians
The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany. They are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, East Frisia and North Frisia, that was a part of Denmark until 1864. They inhabit an area known as Frisia...

 extended the Futhark which eventually became the Anglo-Saxon
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

 futhorc after Proto-English /a/ developed to /o/ in nasal environments.

Unlike the Younger Futhark, which remained in use until modern times, the knowledge of how to read the Elder Futhark was forgotten, and it was not until 1865 that the Norwegian scholar Sophus Bugge
Sophus Bugge
Sophus Bugge was a noted Norwegian philologist and linguist. His scientific work was directed to the study of runic inscriptions and Norse philology. Bugge is best known for his theories and his work on the runic alphabet and the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda. -Background:Elseus Sophus Bugge was...

 managed to decipher it.

The Futhark

The Elder Futhark (named after the initial phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....

 of the first six rune names: F, U, Th, A, R and K) consist of twenty-four runes, often arranged in three groups or ætts of eight each. In the following table, each rune is given with its common transliteration
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...

:
f
u
þ
a
r
k
g
w
h
n
i
j
ï
p
z
s
t
b
e
m
l
ŋ
d
o


þ corresponds to θ.
ï is also trans-literated as æ, and may have been either a diphthong, or a vowel near [ɪ] or [æ]. z was Proto-Germanic [z], and evolved into Proto-Norse [ɹ], and is also transliterated as R. The remaining transliterations correspond to the IPA symbol of their approximate value.

The earliest known sequential listing of the alphabet dates to 400 and is found on the Kylver Stone
Kylver Stone
The Kylver stone, listed in the Rundata catalog as runic inscription G 88, is a Swedish runestone which dates from about 400 CE notable for its listing of each of the runes in the elder futhark.-Description:...

 in Gotland
Gotland
Gotland is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden; it is Sweden's largest island and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, the region makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area...

:
[f]uþarkg[w]hnijpïzstbemlŋdo

Two instances of another early inscription were found on the two Vadstena and Mariedamm bracteates
Vadstena bracteate
The Vadstena bracteate is a gold C-bracteate found in the earth at Vadstena, Sweden, in 1774. Along with the bracteate was a gold ring and a piece of gold sheet: all were about melted down by a goldsmith who was stopped by a local clergyman...

 (6th century), showing the division in three ætts, with the positions of ï, p and o, d inverted compared to the Kylver stone:
fuþarkgw; hnijïpzs; tbemlŋod

The Grumpan bracteate
Grumpan bracteate
The Grumpan bracteate, designated as runic inscription Vg 207 by Rundata, is a gold C-bracteate found in Västergötland, Sweden in 1911.-Runic inscription:...

 presents a listing from 500 which is identical to the one found on the previous bracteates but incomplete:
fuþarkgw ... hnijïp(z) ... tbeml(ŋ)(o)d

Typesetting and encoding

The Elder Futhark is encoded in Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

 within the unified Runic range, 16A0–16FF; as such, any font with Runic coverage will serve to display the script. Some free True Type fonts that display Rune letters and that are currently available: Junicode
Junicode
Junicode is a free old-style serif typeface developed by Peter S. Baker of the University of Virginia. The design is based on a 17th century typeface used in Oxford, England....

, FreeMono and FreeRuneCode. To enter rune letters on a computer requires a keyboard utility. A free utility currently available with all the Elder Futhark keys already installed is called the Elder Futhark keyboard for Microsoft Windows — (QWERTY version).

Derivation from Italic alphabets

The Elder Futhark runes are commonly believed to originate in the Old Italic alphabet
Old Italic alphabet
Old Italic refers to several now extinct alphabet systems used on the Italian Peninsula in ancient times for various Indo-European languages and non-Indo-European languages...

s: either a North Italic variant (Etruscan or Raetic alphabets), or the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...

 itself. Derivation from the Greek alphabet
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...

 via Gothic
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....

 contact to Byzantine Greek culture was a popular theory in the 19th century, but has been ruled out since the dating of the Vimose inscriptions to the 2nd century (while the Goths had been in contact with Greek culture only from the early 3rd century). Conversely, the Greek-derived 4th century Gothic alphabet
Gothic alphabet
The Gothic alphabet is an alphabet for writing the Gothic language, created in the 4th century by Ulfilas for the purpose of translating the Christian Bible....

 does have two letters derived from runes,
(from Jer) and
(from Uruz).

The angular shapes of the runes, presumably an adaptation to the incision in wood or metal, are not a Germanic innovation, but a property that is shared with other early alphabets, including the Old Italic ones (compare, for example, the Duenos inscription
Duenos Inscription
The Duenos Inscription is one of the earliest known Old Latin texts, dating from the 7th century BC. It is inscribed on the sides of a kernos, in this case a trio of small globular vases adjoined by three clay struts. It was found by Heinrich Dressel in 1880 on the Quirinal Hill in Rome. The kernos...

). The 1st century BC Negau helmet
Negau helmet
Negau helmet refers to one of 26 bronze helmets dating to ca. 450 till 350 BC, found in 1811 in a cache in Ženjak, near Negau, Duchy of Styria . The helmets are of typical Etruscan 'vetulonic' shape, sometimes described as of the Negau type. They were buried in ca...

 inscription features a Germanic name, Hariagastiz, in a North Etruscan alphabet, and may be a testimony of the earliest contact of Germanic speakers with alphabetic writing. Similarly, the Meldorf inscription of 50 may qualify as "proto-runic" use of the Latin alphabet by Germanic speakers.
The Raetic "alphabet of Bolzano" in particular seems to fit the letter shapes well The spearhead of Kovel, dated to 200 AD, sometimes advanced as evidence of a peculiar Gothic
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....

 variant of the runic alphabet, bears an inscription tilarids that may in fact be in an Old Italic rather than a runic alphabet, running right to left with a T and a D closer to the Latin or Etruscan than to the Bolzano or runic alphabets.

The f, a, g, i, t, m and l runes show no variation, and are generally accepted as identical to Old Italic or Latin F, A, X, I, T, M and L. There is also wide agreement that the u, r, k, h, s, b and o runes correspond directly to V, R, C, H, S, B and O.

The runes of uncertain derivation may either be original innovations, or adoptions of otherwise unneeded Latin letters. Odenstedt (1990:163) suggests that all 22 Latin letters of the classical Latin alphabet (1st century, ignoring marginalized K
K
K is the eleventh letter of the English and basic modern Latin alphabet.-History and usage:In English, the letter K usually represents the voiceless velar plosive; this sound is also transcribed by in the International Phonetic Alphabet and X-SAMPA....

) were adopted (þ from D, z
Algiz
The Algiz is part of the ancient Nordic and Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, often equated to the modern day z, however was traditionally pronounced yr. The letter has come to symbolize many neo-pagan religions and is often worn as a pendant...

from Y, ŋ from Q, w
Wynn
Wynn is a letter of the Old English alphabet, where it is used to represent the sound ....

from P, j
Jera
*Jēran or *Jēraz "harvest, year" is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the j-rune of the Elder Futhark....

from G, ï
Eihwaz
Eiwaz or Eihaz was a Proto-Germanic word for "yew", and the reconstructed name of the rune ....

from Z), with two runes (p and d
Dagaz
The d rune is called Daeg "day" in the Anglo-Saxon rune poem. The corresponding letter of the Gothic alphabet d is called dags. This rune stave is also part of the Elder Futhark, with a reconstructed Proto-Germanic name *dagaz....

) left over as original Germanic innovations, but there are conflicting scholarly opinions regarding the e
Ehwaz
*Ehwaz is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the Elder Futhark e rune , meaning "horse"...

(from E?), n
Naudiz
Abdul Rahman Pazhwak was an Afghan poet and diplomat. He was educated in Afghanistan and started out his career as a journalist, but eventually joined the foreign ministry. During the 1950s he became ambassador to the United Nations, and served as president of the UN General Assembly from 1966 to...

(from N?), þ (D or Raetic Θ?), w (Q or P?), ï and z (both from either Z or Latin Y?), ŋ (Q?) and d runes.

Of the 24 runes in the classical futhark row attested from 400 (Kylver stone
Kylver Stone
The Kylver stone, listed in the Rundata catalog as runic inscription G 88, is a Swedish runestone which dates from about 400 CE notable for its listing of each of the runes in the elder futhark.-Description:...

),
ï
Eihwaz
Eiwaz or Eihaz was a Proto-Germanic word for "yew", and the reconstructed name of the rune ....

, p and ŋ are unattested in the earliest inscriptions of ca. 175 to 400, while e
Ehwaz
*Ehwaz is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the Elder Futhark e rune , meaning "horse"...

in this early period mostly takes a Π-shape, its M-shape (
) gaining prevalence only from the 5th century. Similarly, the s rune may have either three (
) or four () strokes (and more rarely five or more), and only from the 5th century does the variant with three strokes become prevalent.

Note that the "mature" runes of the 6th to 8th centuries tend to have only three directions of strokes, the vertical and two diagonal directions. Early inscriptions also show horizontal strokes: in the case of e mentioned above, but also in t, l, ŋ and h.

Date and purpose of invention

The general agreement dates the creation of the first runic alphabet to roughly the 1st century. Early estimates include the 1st century BC, and late estimates push the date into the 2nd century. The question is one of estimating the "findless" period separating the script's creation from the Vimose finds of ca. 160. If either ï
Eihwaz
Eiwaz or Eihaz was a Proto-Germanic word for "yew", and the reconstructed name of the rune ....

or z
Algiz
The Algiz is part of the ancient Nordic and Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, often equated to the modern day z, however was traditionally pronounced yr. The letter has come to symbolize many neo-pagan religions and is often worn as a pendant...

indeed derive from Latin Y or Z, as suggested by Odenstedt, the first century BC is ruled out, because these letters were only introduced into the Latin alphabet during the reign of Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...

.

Other scholars are content to assume a findless period of a few decades, pushing the date into the early 2nd century (Askeberg 1944:77, c.f. Odenstedt 1990:168). Pedersen (and with him Odenstedt) suggests a period of development of about a century to account for their assumed derivation of the shapes of þ
and j
from Latin D and G.

The invention of the script has been ascribed to a single person (Moltke 1976:53) or a group of people who had come into contact with Roman culture, maybe as mercenaries in the Roman army, or as merchants. The script was clearly designed for epigraphic purposes, but opinions differ in stressing either magical, practical or simply playful (graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....

) aspects. Bæksted (1952:134) concludes that in its earliest stage, the runic script was an "artificial, playful, not really needed imitation of the Roman script", much like the Germanic bracteate
Bracteate
A bracteate is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age...

s were directly influenced by Roman currency, a view that is accepted by Odenstedt (1990:171) in the light of the very primitive nature of the earliest (2nd to 4th century) inscription corpus.

Rune names

Each rune most probably had a name, chosen to represent the sound of the rune itself. The names are, however, not directly attested for the Elder Futhark themselves. Reconstructed
Linguistic reconstruction
Linguistic reconstruction is the practice of establishing the features of the unattested ancestor of one or more given languages. There are two kinds of reconstruction. Internal reconstruction uses irregularities in a single language to make inferences about an earlier stage of that language...

 names in Proto-Germanic have been produced, based on the names given for the runes in the later runic alphabets attested in the rune poem
Rune poem
The Rune Poems are three poems that list the letters of runic alphabets while providing an explanatory poetic stanza for each letter. Three different poems have been preserved: the Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem, the Norwegian Rune Poem, and the Icelandic Rune Poem.The Icelandic and Norwegian poems list 16...

s and the linked names of the letters of the Gothic alphabet
Gothic alphabet
The Gothic alphabet is an alphabet for writing the Gothic language, created in the 4th century by Ulfilas for the purpose of translating the Christian Bible....

. The asterisk before the rune names means that they are unattested reconstructions. The 24 Elder Futhark runes are:
The rune names stood for their rune because of the first phoneme in the name (the principle of acrophony
Acrophony
Acrophony is the naming of letters of an alphabetic writing system so that a letter's name begins with the letter itself. For example, Greek letter names are acrophonic: the names of the letters α, β, γ, δ, are spelled with the respective letters: ....

), with the exception of Ingwaz and Algiz: the Proto-Germanic z sound of the Algiz rune, never occurred in a word-initial position. The phoneme acquired an r-like quality in Proto-Norse, usually transliterated
Runic transliteration and transcription
Runic transliteration and transcription are part of analysing a runic inscription which involves transliteration of the runes into Latin letters, transcription into a normalized spelling in the language of the inscription, and translation of the inscription into a modern language...

 with R, and finally merged with r in Icelandic, rendering the rune superfluous as a letter. Similarly, the ng-sound of the Ingwaz rune does not occur word-initially.

Most names, in spite of being reconstructions, can be assumed with a fair degree of certainty for the Old Futhark because of the concurrence of Gothic, Anglo-Saxon and Nordic names. The names come from the vocabulary of daily life and mythology, some trivial, some beneficent and some inauspicious:
  • Mythology: Tiwaz, Thurisaz, Ingwaz, God, Man, Sun.

  • Nature and environment: Sun, day, year, hail, ice, lake, water, birch, yew, pear, elk, aurochs, ear (of grain).

  • Daily life and human condition
    Human condition
    The human condition encompasses the experiences of being human in a social, cultural, and personal context. It can be described as the irreducible part of humanity that is inherent and not connected to gender, race, class, etc. — a search for purpose, sense of curiosity, the inevitability of...

    : Man, wealth/cattle, horse, estate/inheritance, slag, ride/journey, year/harvest, gift, joy, need, ulcer/illness.

Inscription corpus

Old Futhark inscriptions were found on artefacts scattered between the Carpathians
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...

 and Lappland, with the highest concentration in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

. They are usually short inscriptions on jewellery (bracteate
Bracteate
A bracteate is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age...

s, fibulae, belt buckles), utensils (combs, spinning whorls) or weapons (lance tips, seaxes) and were mostly found in graves or bogs.

Scandinavian inscriptions

Words frequently appearing in inscriptions on bracteates with possibly magical significance are alu, laþu and laukaz. Their meaning is unclear, although alu has been associated with "ale, intoxicating drink", in a context of ritual drinking, and laukaz with "leek, garlic", in a context of fertility and growth, although there is only one Christian and biased reference to the leek definition whereas all other historical evidence only points to water as the definition of Laukaz. An example of a longer early inscription is on a 4th century axe-handle found in Nydam, Jutland
Jutland
Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...

: wagagastiz / alu:??hgusikijaz:aiþalataz (wagagaztiz "wave-guest" could be a personal name, the rest has been read as alu:wihgu sikijaz:aiþalataz with a putative meaning "wave/flame-guest, from a bog, alu, I, oath-sayer consecrate/fight". The obscurity even of emended readings is typical for runic inscriptions that go beyond simple personal names). A term frequently found in early inscriptions is Erilaz
Erilaz
Erilaz is a Migration period Proto-Norse word attested on various Elder Futhark inscriptions, which has often been interpreted to mean "magician" or "rune master", viz. one who is capable of writing runes to magical effect...

, apparently describing a person with knowledge of runes.

The oldest known runic inscription dates to 160 and is found on the Vimose Comb
Vimose inscriptions
Finds from Vimose, Funen, Denmark, include some of the very oldest datable Elder Futhark runic inscriptions in late Proto-Germanic or early Proto-Norse from the 2nd to 3rd centuries AD....

 discovered in the bog of Vimose, Funen
Funen
Funen , with a size of 2,984 km² , is the third-largest island of Denmark following Zealand and Vendsyssel-Thy, and the 163rd largest island of the world. Funen is located in the central part of the country and has a population of 454,358 inhabitants . The main city is Odense, connected to the...

. The inscription reads harja, either a personal name or an epithet, viz. Proto-Germanic *harjaz (PIE
Pie
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

 ) "warrior
Warrior
A warrior is a person skilled in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based society that recognizes a separate warrior class.-Warrior classes in tribal culture:...

", or simply the word for "comb" (*hārjaz). Another early inscription is found on the Thorsberg chape
Thorsberg chape
The Thorsberg chape , is an archeological find from the Thorsberg moor, Germany, that appears to have been deposited as a votive offering...

 (200), probably containing the theonym Ullr
Ullr
In early Germanic paganism, *Wulþuz appears to have been a major god, or an epithet of an important god, in prehistoric times....

.

The typically Scandinavian runestones begin to show the transition to Younger Futhark
Younger Futhark
The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet, a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, consisting of only 16 characters, in use from ca. 800 CE...

 from the 6th century, with transitional examples like the Björketorp
Björketorp Runestone
The Björketorp Runestone in Blekinge, Sweden, is part of a grave field which includes menhirs, both solitary and forming stone circles....

 or Stentoften
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....

 stones. In the early 9th century, both the older and the younger futhark were known and used, which is shown on the Rök Runestone
Rök Runestone
The Rök Runestone is one of the most famous runestones, featuring the longest known runic inscription in stone. It can now be seen by the church in Rök , Östergötland, Sweden...

 where the runemaster
Runemaster
A runemaster or runecarver is a specialist in making runestones.Most early medieval Scandinavians were probably literate in runes, and most people probably carved messages on pieces of bone and wood. However, it was difficult to make runestones, and in order to master it one also needed to be a...

 used both.

The longest known inscription in the Elder Futhark, and one of the youngest, consists of some 200 characters and is found on the early 8th century Eggjum stone
Eggjum stone
The Eggja stone , listed as N KJ101 in the Rundata catalog, is a grave stone with a runic inscription that was ploughed up in 1917 on the farm Eggja in Sogndal, Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway.-Description:...

, and may even contain a stanza of Old Norse poetry
Old Norse poetry
Old Norse poetry encompasses a range of verse forms written in Old Norse, during the period from the 8th century to as late as the far end of the 13th century...

.

The Caistor-by-Norwich astragalus
Caistor-by-Norwich astragalus
The Caistor-by-Norwich astralagus is a roe deer astragalus found in an urn at Caistor St. Edmund, Norfolk, England. The astralagus is inscribed with a 5th-century Elder Futhark inscription, reading ' "roe"...

 reading raihan "deer" is notable as the oldest inscription of the British Isles, dating to 400, the very end of Roman Britain
Sub-Roman Britain
Sub-Roman Britain is a term derived from an archaeological label for the material culture of Britain in Late Antiquity: the term "Sub-Roman" was invented to describe the potsherds in sites of the 5th century and the 6th century, initially with an implication of decay of locally-made wares from a...

 and just predating the modifications leading to futhorc.

Continental inscriptions

The oldest inscriptions (before 500) found on the Continent are divided into two groups, the area of the North Sea coast and Northern Germany (including parts of the Netherlands) associated with the Saxons
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...

 and Frisians
Frisians
The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany. They are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, East Frisia and North Frisia, that was a part of Denmark until 1864. They inhabit an area known as Frisia...

 on one hand (part of the "North Germanic Koine", Martin 2004:173), and loosely scattered finds from along the Oder
Oder
The Oder is a river in Central Europe. It rises in the Czech Republic and flows through western Poland, later forming of the border between Poland and Germany, part of the Oder-Neisse line...

 to south-eastern Poland, as far as the Carpathian Mountains
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...

 (e.g. the ring of Pietroassa
Ring of Pietroassa
The Ring of Pietroassa is a gold Torc-like necklace found in a ring barrow in Pietroassa , Buzău County, southern Romania , in 1837. It formed part of a large gold Hoard dated to between 250 and 400 CE...

 in Romania), associated with East Germanic tribes. The latter group disappears during the 5th century, the time of contact of the Goths
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....

 with the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 and their conversion to Christianity
Germanic Christianity
The Germanic people underwent gradual Christianization in the course of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. By the 8th century, England and the Frankish Empire were Christian, and by AD 1100 Germanic paganism had also ceased to have political influence in Scandinavia.-History:In the 4th...

.

In this early period, there is no specifically West Germanic runic tradition. This changes from the early 6th century, and for about one century (520 to 620), an Alamanni
Alamanni
The Alamanni, Allemanni, or Alemanni were originally an alliance of Germanic tribes located around the upper Rhine river . One of the earliest references to them is the cognomen Alamannicus assumed by Roman Emperor Caracalla, who ruled the Roman Empire from 211 to 217 and claimed thereby to be...

c "runic province" (Martin 2004) emerges, with examples on fibulae, weapon parts and belt buckles. As in the East Germanic case, use of runes subsides with Christianization, in the case of the Alamanni in the course of the 7th century.

Distribution

There are some 350 known Elder Futhark inscriptions (Fischer 2004:281). Lüthi (2004:321) identifies a total of approx. 81 known inscriptions from the South (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and approx. 267 from Scandinavia. The precise numbers are debatable because of some suspected forgeries, and some disputed inscriptions (identification as "runes" vs. accidental scratches, simple ornaments or Latin letters). 133 Scandinavian inscriptions are on bracteates (compared to 2 from the South), and 65 are on runestones (no Southern example is extant). Southern inscriptions are predominantly on fibulae (43, compared to 15 in Scandinavia). The Scandinavian runestones belong to the later period of the Elder Futhark, and initiate the boom of medieval Younger Futhark
Younger Futhark
The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet, a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, consisting of only 16 characters, in use from ca. 800 CE...

 stones (with some 6,000 surviving examples).

Elder Futhark inscriptions were rare, with very few active literati, in relation to the total population, at any time, so that knowledge of the runes was probably an actual "secret" throughout the Migration period. Of 366 lances excavated at Illerup
Illerup Ådal
Illerup Ådal is an archeological site located near Skanderborg, Denmark.The first findings at the river valley Illerup Ådal were revealed in 1950, during the drainage works. The area was excavated from 1950 till 1956 and again in 1975-1985. During the excavations more than 15,000 items, mainly Iron...

, only 2 bore inscriptions. A similar ratio is estimated for Alemannia, with an estimated 170 excavated graves to every inscription found (Lüthi 2004:323)

Estimates of the total number of inscriptions produced are based on the "minimal runological estimate" of 40,000 (ten individuals making ten inscriptions per year for four centuries). The actual number was probably considerably higher. The 80 known Southern inscriptions are from some 100,000 known graves. With an estimated total of 50,000,000 graves (based on population density estimates), some 80,000 inscriptions would have been produced in total in the Merovingian South alone (and maybe close to 400,000 in total, so that of the order of 0.1% of the corpus has come down to us), and Fischer (2004:281) estimates a population of several hundred active literati throughout the period, with as many as 1,600 during the Alamannic "runic boom" of the 6th century.

List of inscriptions

After Looijenga (1997), Lüthi (2004).
  • Scandinavia
    • Period I (150 – 550)
      • Vimose inscriptions
        Vimose inscriptions
        Finds from Vimose, Funen, Denmark, include some of the very oldest datable Elder Futhark runic inscriptions in late Proto-Germanic or early Proto-Norse from the 2nd to 3rd centuries AD....

         (6 objects, 160–300)
      • Gotland spearhead (ca. 180), gaois
      • Øvre Stabu spearhead (ca. 180), raunijaz
      • Illerup inscriptions (9 objects)
      • Golden horns of Gallehus
        Golden horns of Gallehus
        The Golden Horns of Gallehus were two horns made of sheet gold, discovered in Gallehus, north of Møgeltønder in South Jutland, Denmark.The horns date to the early 5th century, i.e. the beginning of the Germanic Iron Age....

         (ca. 400)
      • Einang stone
        Einang stone
        The Einang stone is a runestone located near Fagernes, Norway, notable for the age of its runic inscription.-Description:The Einang stone bears an Elder Futhark inscription in Proto-Norse that has been dated to the 4th century...

         (400)
      • Kylver Stone
        Kylver Stone
        The Kylver stone, listed in the Rundata catalog as runic inscription G 88, is a Swedish runestone which dates from about 400 CE notable for its listing of each of the runes in the elder futhark.-Description:...

         (400)
      • Rö Runestone
        Rö runestone
        The Rö runestone, designated under Rundata as Bo KJ73 U, is one of Sweden's oldest and most notable runestones.-Description:The Rö runestone was discovered 1919 at the farm Rö on the island of Otterö north of the fishing village of Grebbestad in Bohuslän...

         (400 - 450)
      • Kalleby Runestone
        Kalleby Runestone
        The Kalleby Runestone is an enigmatic Iron Age runestone inscribed in Proto-Norse with the Elder Futhark:*þrawijan * haitinaz wasThis short text has been the subject of several interpretations where þrawijan, which means "yearning", is interpreted as either a name or an epithet...

         (5th century)
      • Möjbro Runestone
        Möjbro Runestone
        The Möjbro Runestone is a runestone that is designated as U 877 in the Rundata catalog and is inscribed in Proto-Norse using the elder futhark. It was found in Möjbro, which is about 8 kilometers north of Örsundsbro in Uppsala County, Sweden, which is in the historic province of Uppland...

         (400 - 550)
      • Järsberg Runestone
        Järsberg Runestone
        The Järsberg Runestone is a runestone in the elder futhark near Kristinehamn in Värmland, Sweden.-Inscription:It contains the following runic text as transliterated into Latin letters:As translated into English:...

         (500 - 550)
      • Hogganvik runestone
        Hogganvik runestone
        The Hogganvik runestone is a fifth century runestone, bearing an Elder Futhark inscription, that was discovered in September 2009 by Arnfinn Henriksen, a resident of Hogganvik, in the Sånum-Lundevik area of Mandal, Vest-Agder, Norway, while working in the garden.-Description:The Hogganvik...

         (5th century)
    • Bracteates: total 133 (see also Alu
      Alu (runic)
      Alu is a Germanic charm word appearing on numerous Elder Futhark found in Central and Northern Europe dating from between 200 and 800 CE. The word – the most common of the early runic charm words – usually appears either alone or as part of an apparent formula...

      )
      • Seeland-II-C
        Seeland-II-C
        Seeland-II-C is a Scandinavian bracteate from Zealand, Denmark dating to the Migration period . The bracteate bears an Elder Futhark inscription which reads as:The final ttt is a triple-stacked Tiwaz rune...

         (500)
      • Vadstena bracteate
        Vadstena bracteate
        The Vadstena bracteate is a gold C-bracteate found in the earth at Vadstena, Sweden, in 1774. Along with the bracteate was a gold ring and a piece of gold sheet: all were about melted down by a goldsmith who was stopped by a local clergyman...

      • Tjurkö bracteate
        Tjurkö bracteate
        The Tjurkö Bracteates, listed by Rundata as DR BR75 and DR BR76, are two bracteates found on Tjurkö, Eastern Hundred, Blekinge, Sweden, bearing Elder Futhark runic inscriptions, in Proto-Norse.-Description:...

    • Period II (550 – 700)
      • Skåäng Runestone
        Skåäng Runestone
        The Skåäng Runestone, designated as Sö 32 under Rundata, is an Iron Age runestone located in Skåäng, Södermanland, Sweden, which is inscribed in Proto-Norse with the elder futhark...

         (6th century?)
      • Björketorp Runestone
        Björketorp Runestone
        The Björketorp Runestone in Blekinge, Sweden, is part of a grave field which includes menhirs, both solitary and forming stone circles....

      • Gummarp Runestone
        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:...

      • Istaby Runestone
        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....

      • Stentoften Runestone
        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....


  • South-Eastern Europe (200 – 550): 4 AD.
    • Gothic runic inscriptions
      Gothic runic inscriptions
      Very few Elder Futhark inscriptions in the Gothic language have been found in the territory historically settled by the Goths...

       (200 – 350)

  • Continental inscriptions (mainly Germany; 200 – 700): 50 legible, 15 illegible (39 brooches, 11 weapon parts, 4 fittings and belt buckles, 3 strap ends, 8 other)
    • Thorsberg chape
      Thorsberg chape
      The Thorsberg chape , is an archeological find from the Thorsberg moor, Germany, that appears to have been deposited as a votive offering...

       (200)
    • Bülach fibula
      Bülach fibula
      The Bülach fibula is a silver disk-type fibula with almandine inlay found in Bülach, Canton Zürich in 1927. The Alemannic grave in which it was found dates to 6th century and contained the remains of an adult woman...

    • Charnay fibula
      Charnay Fibula
      The Charnay Fibula is a mid 6th century fibula or brooch which was discovered in Burgundy in 1857. It has a runic inscription consisting of a horizontal partial listing of the first twenty of the twenty-four rune sequence of the elder futhark and two undeciphered vertical lines. The full listing of...

    • Nordendorf fibula
      Nordendorf fibula
      thumb|300px|right|The Nordendorf II fibulaThe Nordendorf fibulae are two mid 6th to early 7th century Alamannic fibulae found in Nordendorf near Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany....

    • Pforzen buckle
      Pforzen buckle
      The Pforzen buckle is a silver belt buckle found in Pforzen, Ostallgäu in 1992. The Alemannic grave in which it was found dates to the end of the 6th century and was presumably that of a warrior, as it also contained a lance, spatha, seax and shield...

  • English and Frisian (300 – 700): 44; see futhorc

See also

  • Gothic alphabet
    Gothic alphabet
    The Gothic alphabet is an alphabet for writing the Gothic language, created in the 4th century by Ulfilas for the purpose of translating the Christian Bible....

  • Old Turkic script
  • Proto-Norse
  • Runic alphabet
    Runic alphabet
    The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter...

  • Rune poem
    Rune poem
    The Rune Poems are three poems that list the letters of runic alphabets while providing an explanatory poetic stanza for each letter. Three different poems have been preserved: the Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem, the Norwegian Rune Poem, and the Icelandic Rune Poem.The Icelandic and Norwegian poems list 16...

  • Runestone

External links

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