Texts and Contexts of the Oldest Runic Inscriptions

Tineke Looijenga

BRILL, Jan 1, 2003 - Social Science - 383 pages

This volume gathers all older fuþark inscriptions found in Denmark, Germany, England, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Hungary, Bosnia, Rumania, Norway and Sweden. It contains essays on early runic writing, the historical and archaeological contexts of runic objects, and a new theory on the origin of runic writing. The book contains also a catalogue of the runic inscriptions found in the regions mentioned above. The catalogue gives datings, readings and interpretations, plus limited graphic, orthographic and linguistic analyses of the inscriptions from the above mentioned corpora, complete with concise bibliographical references. The overall aim has been to provide the reader with a practical survey of the oldest inscripti-ons from the aforementioned areas, together with relevant archaeological and cultural-historical data. The book is particularly useful for runologists, students and others interested in runes, such as archaeologists, historians, linguists and amateurs. It is actually a handbook covering all older runic inscriptions and their context.

Contents

• England and the Netherlands: 11
• Division into runic periods: 18
• CHAPTER TWO HISTORY ARCHAEOLOGY AND RUNES: 27
• CHAPTER THREE ON THE ORIGIN OF RUNES 1 Introduction: 78
• The quest: 79
• Runes and Romans on the Rhine: 82
• More Roman connections: 88
• The first runewriters: 93
• The West Germanic hypothesis: 94
• Conclusions: 99
• Some thoughts on the development of the runic writing system: 101
• CHAPTER FOUR SUMMARY AND SOME CONCLUSIONS 1 Classification of contents: 105
• Runic writing and runewriters: 106
• Some backgrounds of early runic writing: 107
• Runes and rituals: 113
• Comparing the corpora: 115
• The Frisian corpus: 118
• Frisian and AngloSaxon runic peculiarities: 121
• Runes in Denmark and Southeast Europe: 126
• Continental runewriting: 127
• Runes on bracteates: 129
• ornamental runes runecrosses multipleline runes and mirrorrunes: 131
• The influence of Latin: 133
• Syntaxis and division marks: 134
• On the significance of runeforms: 135
• The yew rune: 138
• The fate of the j rune Gmc jāra OE gēr jār: 142
• CATALOGUE: 147
• CHAPTER FIVE EARLY DANISH AND SOUTHEAST EUROPEAN RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS 1 Introduction: 149
• Checklist Period I legible and partly interpretable inscriptions: 153
• Recent finds: 168
• Illegible andor uninterpretable inscriptions: 169
• Gothic runic finds: 171
• Period II the Blekinge inscriptions: 176
• Summary and conclusions: 183
• A new explanation of the Blekinge texts: 188
• CHAPTER SIX BRACTEATES WITH RUNES 1 Introduction: 190
• Alu: 194
• Auja: 196
• Fuþark: 197
• Lapu: 199
• Checklist runic bracteates: 201
• Conclusions: 222
• CHAPTER SEVEN CONTINENTAL RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS 1 Introduction: 223
• Checklist legible and partly interpretable inscriptions: 226
• Recent finds: 264
• Illegible andor uninterpretable inscriptions: 266
• The Weser inscriptions: 267
• No runes: 268
• Summary and conclusions: 269
• CHAPTER EIGHT EARLY RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS IN ENGLAND 1 Introduction: 273
• Checklist Period I legible and partly interpretable inscriptions: 276
• Illegible or uninterpretable inscriptions and singlerune inscriptions: 289
• Recent finds: 292
• Possibly runic nonrunic and ornamental signs: 294
• Summary and conclusions: 295
• CHAPTER NINE RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS IN OR FROM: 299
• APPENDIX SWEDISH AND NORWEGIAN INSCRIPTIONS: 329
• Norway: 338
• BIBLIOGRAPHY: 361
• INDEX: 379

Bibliographic information

• Title: Texts and Contexts of the Oldest Runic Inscriptions; The Northern World
• Author: Tineke Looijenga
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: BRILL, 2003
• ISBN: 9004123962, 9789004123960
• Length: 383 pages
• Subjects: Architecture / Interior Design / General; Body, Mind & Spirit / Divination / General; Foreign Language Study / German; History / Medieval; Social Science / Archaeology