The Berezan' Runestone ( X UaFv1914;47) was discovered in 1905 by Ernst von Stern, professor at Odessa, on Berezan' Island (also known as the Island of St Aitherios) where the

Dnieper River The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

meets the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

. The

runestone A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic alphabet, runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition of erecting runestones as a memorial to dead men began in the 4th centur ...

is wide, high and thick, and kept in the museum of

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

.Braun & Arne 1914:44 It was made by a

Varangian The Varangians ( ; ; ; , or )Varangian
," Online Etymology Dictionary were

Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

) trader named Grani in memory of his

business partner A business partner is a commercial entity with which another commercial entity has some form of alliance. This relationship may be a contractual, exclusive bond in which both entities commit not to ally with third parties. Alternatively, it may be ...

Karl.Thunberg 2011:54-55 They were probably from

Gotland Gotland (; ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a Provinces of Sweden, province/Counties of Sweden, county (Swedish län), Municipalities of Sweden, municipality, a ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

Location

Berezan' is located in the Black Sea not far from the mouth of the Dnieper River. Its bays gave shelter to the Scandinavian ships that passed it on the

trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks The trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks was a medieval trade route that connected Scandinavia, Kievan Rus' and the Eastern Roman Empire. The route allowed merchants along its length to establish a direct prosperous trade with the Empire ...

.Jansson 1997:61 Sven B.F. Jansson, later Sweden's National Antiquarian, writes on its importance:

Discovery

The runestone was discovered during the excavations of a

kurgan A kurgan is a type of tumulus (burial mound) constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons, and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into mu ...

from the 6th century BC. After its construction, the kurgan had been used for 48 additional burials of different types and at various depths. None of the bodies appeared to have been incinerated; some had been carelessly buried without any

grave goods Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are items buried along with a body. They are usually personal possessions, supplies to smooth the deceased's journey into an afterlife, or offerings to gods. Grave goods may be classed by researche ...

, while others had received wooden coffins or had at least been put on planks before the inhumation, while some had been inserted into stone coffins made of flat slabs of stone. On June 9, 1905, von Stern's crew discovered a lidless stone coffin in the eastern part of the kurgan containing a skeleton whose skull was resting on the runestone. The runestone was discovered by von Stern just as a worker intended to throw it on a pile of stone. The runestone was probably not discovered in its original location, and it is likely that it was originally located at one of the minor barrows in the vicinity.Braun & Arne 1914:45

Inscription

The inscription is completely preserved, which is shown by the fact that the first and last letters are marked as the end parts of the inscription. The engravings are c. 8 cm long and 0.75 cm deep. Transliteration and transcription:

Identity

It is difficult to determine from where Grani and Karl came. In runic inscriptions, the Old Norse word ''hvalf'' ("vault", "coffin") only appears in

, and in some late inscriptions from

Västergötland Västergötland (), also known as West Gothland or the Latinized version Westrogothia in older literature, is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish), situated in the southwest of Sweden. Vä ...

(both being regions in present-day Sweden). There are no special traits in the inscription that suggests that it was written in the

Old Gutnish Old Gutnish was a stage in the development of the North Germanic language Gutnish, spoken on the Baltic Sea, Baltic island of Gotland and Fårö. The extant body of Old Gutnish is small, and Gutalagen and the Guta saga constitute its majority. ...

dialect of Old Norse, but the shape of the runestone and its placement are usually found on Gotland.Braun & Arne 1914:48 It is likely that the Gotlanders Grani and Karl were on their way to, or from,

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

but that Karl died and so Grani prepared his last resting place on an island that had always been visited by sailors, and which the Byzantines called the "island of Saint Etherius." The runestone's description of Karl as the ''

félag (Old Norse, meaning "fellowship, partnership") was a joint financial venture between partners in Viking Age society.Fritzner, Johan (1867). Ordbog over det Gamle Norske Sprog'. Feilberg & Landmark. p. 139. Etymology The word ' is constructed by ...

'' of Grani indicates that they were operating in a mercantile partnership, but it has been suggested that it could have referred to them as members of the same retinue.Duczko 2004:252

Uniqueness

Few runic inscriptions have been discovered in Eastern Europe because stone material was scarce. It may also have been due to the tradition of inscribing runes on wooden poles that were erected on the barrows, something which was described by

Ibn Fadlan Ahmad ibn Fadlan ibn al-Abbas al-Baghdadi () or simply known as Ibn Fadlan, was a 10th-century traveler from Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate, famous for his account of his travels as a member of an embassy of the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir to the king ...

who met Scandinavians on the shores of the

Volga The Volga (, ) is the longest river in Europe and the longest endorheic basin river in the world. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchment ...

.Pritsak 1987:306 By the time the raising of runestones became fashionable in the 11th century, most Scandinavian settlers in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

and

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

had been assimilated by the Slavic majority, and the influx of new settlers had ceased.

Notes

References

*Braun, F. & Arne, T. J. (1914). "Den svenska runstenen från ön Berezanj utanför Dneprmynningen", in Ekhoff, E. (ed.) ''Fornvännen årgång 9'' pp. 44-48

*Duczko, W. (2004).
Viking Rus: Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe
'. BRILL. * * Omeljan Pritsak, Pritsak, O. (1987). ''The origin of Rus'.'' Cambridge, Mass.: Distributed by Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. * Thunberg, Carl L. (2011). ''Särkland och dess källmaterial'' 'Serkland and its Source Material'' Göteborgs universitet. *

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 ...

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