The Caistor-by-Norwich astragalus is a roe deer

astragalus Astragalus may refer to: * ''Astragalus'' (plant), a large genus of herbs and small shrubs *Astragalus (bone) The talus (; Latin for ankle or ankle bone; : tali), talus bone, astragalus (), or ankle bone is one of the group of foot bones known ...

(ankle bone) found in an urn at Caistor St. Edmund,

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

in 1937. The astragalus is inscribed with a 5th-century

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 ...

inscription, reading "roe deer". The inscription is the earliest found in England, and predates the evolution of the specifically Anglo-Frisian Futhorc. As the urn was found in a cemetery that indicated some

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

n influence, it has been suggested that the astragalus may be an import, perhaps brought from Denmark in the earliest phase of the

Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain The settlement of Great Britain by Germanic peoples from continental Europe led to the development of an Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon cultural identity and a shared Germanic language—Old English—whose closest known relative is Old Frisian, s ...

. pp. 389-91. The inscription is an important testimony for the Eihwaz rune and the treatment of

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...

''*ai''. The ''h'' rune has the Nordic single-bar shape , not the Continental double-bar which was later adopted in the Anglo-Frisian runes.

References

*Bammesberger, A. 'Das Futhark und seine Weiterentwicklung in der anglo-friesischen Überlieferung', in Bammesberger and Waxenberger (eds.), ''Das fuþark und seine einzelsprachlichen Weiterentwicklungen'', Walter de Gruyter (2006), , 171–187. *Hines, J. 'The Runic Inscriptions of Early Anglo-Saxon England' in: A. Bammesberger (ed.), '' Britain 400-600: Language and History'', Heidelberg (1990), 437–456. 5th-century inscriptions Elder Futhark inscriptions Archaeological discoveries in the United Kingdom Archaeology of the kingdom of East Anglia Anglo-Saxon runes 1937 archaeological discoveries {{UK-archaeology-stub

References

Further reading