Reconstructie van de runeninscriptie van Bergakker

The Bergakker inscription is an Elder Futhark inscription discovered on the scabbard of a 5th-century

sword A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...

. It was found in 1996 in the Dutch town of Bergakker, in the Betuwe, a region once inhabited by the Batavi. There is consensus that the find dates from the period 425-475 and that the inscription is either the singular direct attestation of Frankish (Franconian), or the earliest attestation of

Old Dutch In linguistics, Old Dutch ( Modern Dutch: ') or Old Low Franconian (Modern Dutch: ') is the set of dialects that evolved from Frankish spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages, from around the 6th Page 55: "''Uit de zesde eeu ...

(Old Low Franconian).

Inscription

Runic writing at the time was used along the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

coast, in

Frisia Frisia () is a Cross-border region, cross-border Cultural area, cultural region in Northwestern Europe. Stretching along the Wadden Sea, it encompasses the north of the Netherlands and parts of northwestern Germany. Wider definitions of "Frisia" ...

, but there are very few other extant inscriptions from

Francia The Kingdom of the Franks (), also known as the Frankish Kingdom, or just Francia, was the largest History of the Roman Empire, post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks, Frankish Merovingian dynasty, Merovingi ...

. The inscription can be read as where V is a non-standard rune, apparently a vowel (variously read as ''e'' or ''u'', or as "any vowel"), and * represents an unknown rune. Several readings have been presented in literature. There seems to be a consensus that the ''ann'' is the past tense of ''unnan'', corresponding to Modern Dutch , which means "give/bestow/grant". Several authors read the first word as a personal name in the genitive (indicating property), and the last word as meaning "flame, brand", a

kenning A kenning ( Icelandic: ) is a figure of speech, a figuratively-phrased compound term that is used in place of a simple single-word noun. For instance, the Old English kenning () means , as does (). A kenning has two parts: a base-word (a ...

for swords. The third word is read either as ''kusjam'', meaning "chooser" or "chosen", corresponding to Modern Dutch ''keuze,'' or as ''ke(i)sjam'' meaning "cut" or "cutter", also referring to swords or sword wielders.

Scholarly interpretations

References

Sources

* Bammesberger, Alfred. ''Die Runeninschrift von Bergakker: Versuch einer Deutung'', in: ''Pforzen und Bergakker. Neue Untersuchungen zu Runeninschriften'', edited by Alfred Bammesberger in editorial collaboration with Gaby Waxenberger, Göttingen 1999 (= ''Historische Sprachforschung (Historical Linguistics): Ergänzungsheft 41'', edited by Alfred Bammesberger and Günter Neumann), 180–185. * Bosman, A.V.A.J, & Looijenga, T. ''A runic inscription from Bergakker (Gelderland), the Netherlands'', in: ''Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik'', 46, 1996, 9–16. *Grünzweig, Friedrich E. ''Runeninschriften auf Waffen. Inschriften vom 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr. bis ins Hochmittelalter.'' Wien 2004 (= Wiener Studien zur Skandinavistik, 11). * Looijenga, Tineke. ''The Bergakker Find and its Context'', in: ''Pforzen und Bergakker. Neue Untersuchungen zu Runeninschriften'', Göttingen 1999, 141–151. * {{Cite book , last=Mees , first=Bernard , editor1-first=Erika, editor1-last=Langbroek, editor2-first=Arend, editor2-last=Quak, editor3-first=Annelies, editor3-last=Roeleveld, editor4-first=Paula, editor4-last=Vermeyden , contribution=The Bergakker Inscription and the Beginnings of Dutch , title=Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik , publisher=Rodopi , place=Amsterdam – New York, NY , date=2002 , pages=23–26 , volume=56 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W91nBn0l96wC , isbn=90-420-1579-9 * Odenstedt, Bengt. ''The Bergakker Inscription: Transliteration, Interpretation, Message: Some Suggestions'', in: ''Pforzen und Bergakker. Neue Untersuchungen zu Runeninschriften'', Göttingen 1999, 163–173. *Quak, Arend, 'Wieder nach Bergakker', in: ''Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik'', 53, 2000, 33–39. * Seebold, Elmar. ''Die Runeninschrift von Bergakker'', in: ''Pforzen und Bergakker. Neue Untersuchungen zu Runeninschriften'', Göttingen 1999, 157–162. * Vennemann, Theo. ''Note on the Runic Inscription of the Bergakker Scabbard Mount'', in: ''Pforzen und Bergakker. Neue Untersuchungen zu Runeninschriften'', Göttingen 1999, 152–156.

External links

The New Find from Bergakker - An Update
from Nytt om runer
Drawing of the inscription on the metal mount
at Gotica.de, ''Gotisch-Projekte: Projekte zur gotischen Schrift und Literatur'' by Christian T. Petersen, M.A. Elder Futhark inscriptions Archaeological discoveries in the Netherlands 1996 archaeological discoveries Frankish people History of the Dutch language Runic inscriptions Tiel Old Dutch

Inscription

Scholarly interpretations

See also

References

Sources

External links