Reconstructie van de runeninscriptie van Bergakker

The Bergakker inscription is an

Elder Futhark inscription A runic inscription is an inscription made in one of the various runic alphabets. They generally contained practical information or memorials instead of magic or mythic stories. The body of runic inscriptions falls into the three categories of El ...

discovered on the

scabbard A scabbard is a sheath for holding a sword, knife, or other large blade. As well, rifles may be stored in a scabbard by horse riders. Military cavalry and cowboys had scabbards for their saddle ring carbine rifles and lever-action rifles on the ...

of a 5th-century

sword A sword is an 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 blade with a pointed ti ...

. It was found in 1996 in the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

town of Bergakker, in the

Betuwe Batavia (; , ) is a historical and geographical region in the Netherlands, forming large fertile islands in the river delta formed by the waters of the Rhine (Dutch: ''Rijn'') and Meuse (Dutch: ''Maas'') rivers. During the Roman empire, it wa ...

, 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 (Dutch: Oudnederlands) or Old Low Franconian (Dutch: Oudnederfrankisch) is the set of Franconian dialects (i.e. dialects that evolved from Frankish) spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages, from aro ...

(Old Low Franconian).

Inscription

Runic writing at the time was used along the

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

coast, in

Frisia Frisia is a cross-border cultural region in Northwestern Europe. Stretching along the Wadden Sea, it encompasses the north of the Netherlands and parts of northwestern Germany. The region is traditionally inhabited by the Frisians, a West G ...

, but there are very few other extant inscriptions from

Francia Francia, also called the Kingdom of the Franks ( la, Regnum Francorum), Frankish Kingdom, Frankland or Frankish Empire ( la, Imperium Francorum), was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks du ...

. The inscription can be read as : : :''ha?VþV??s : ann : kVsjam :'' :'': logVns :'' where V is a non-standard rune, apparently a vowel (variously read as ''e'' or ''u'', or as "any vowel"). 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 ''gunnen'', 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 in the type of circumlocution, a compound that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly associated with Old Norse-Icelandic and Old English ...

for swords. The third word is read either as ''kusjam'', meaning "chooser" or "chosen", 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 Dr. 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