The Setre Comb is a bone

comb A comb is a tool consisting of a shaft that holds a row of teeth for pulling through the hair to clean, untangle, or style it. Combs have been used since prehistoric times, having been discovered in very refined forms from settlements dating ba ...

found in 1932 at Setre in

Bømlo Bømlo () is a list of municipalities of Norway, municipality in the southwestern part of Vestland county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Sunnhordland. The administrative centre of the muni ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

, which has been dated to between 560 and 700 AD. It has a

runic 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 E ...

whose interpretation has been extensively discussed.

Overview

The comb, listed as N KJ40 in the

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 ...

catalog, was discovered in 1932 during archaeological investigation of an ancient refuse heap on the beach at the foot of a cliff in the Sætre (or Setre) fjord on the island of

, and is now in the collection of the

Bergen Museum The University Museum of Bergen () is a university museum in Bergen, Norway. The museum features material related to anthropology, archaeology, botany, geology, zoology, art, and cultural history. History The University Museum of Bergen was fo ...

. Based on the find circumstances in relation to deposition strata, it was dated by Haakon Shetelig and later by

Birger Nerman Birger Nerman (6 October 188822 August 1971) was a Swedish archaeologist, historian and philologist who specialized in the history and culture of Iron Age Sweden. Nerman was educated at Uppsala University, where he began his career as a lecture ...

to the second half of the 7th century; pp. 455-456. Egil Bakka has suggested that the assumption the comb can be dated to when it entered the refuse heap is invalid and it should instead be dated on typological grounds, which might mean it is as early as 575 AD, or possibly 8th-century. Rundata provides a dating to 560/570-600, from 2007.

Inscription interpretation

The inscription features a mixture of

Elder Futhark The Elder Futhark (or Fuþark, ), also known as the Older Futhark, Old Futhark, or Germanic Futhark, is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a writing system used by Germanic peoples for Northwest Germanic dialects in the Migration Per ...

and Younger Futhark runes. There are three rows of text, but it is unclear in what direction it is to be read, or whether all rows are to be read in the same direction. The comb is a subject of study by

runologists Runology is the study of the runic alphabets, runic inscriptions, and their history. Runology forms a specialized branch of Germanic linguistics. History Runology was initiated by Johannes Bureus (1568–1652), who was interested in the linguis ...

since most experts agree in reading the Germanic

charm Charm or Charms may refer to: Arts and entertainment * The Charms, an American garage rock band * Otis Williams and the Charms, an American doo-wop group * The Charm (Bubba Sparxxx album), ''The Charm'' (Bubba Sparxxx album), 2006 * Charm (Danny! ...

word '' alu'' and the name

Nanna Nanna may refer to: *Grandmother Mythology * Sin (mythology), god of the moon in Sumerian mythology, also called Nanna * Nanna (Norse deity), goddess associated with the god Baldr in Norse mythology People * Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir (born ...

in the inscription, although it is uncertain whether the name refers to the goddess who is known from later attestations. However, this ignores the reading of the charm word '' alu''. Several other interpretations have been proposed;The Kieler RunenProjekt list
eight interpretations
of the inscription. no interpretation has been generally accepted.

References and notes

External links

Photograph of the comb
Alu (runic) Germanic paganism Germanic archaeological artifacts Runic inscriptions {{Europe-archaeology-stub Archaeological discoveries in Norway 1932 archaeological discoveries