Arkils tingstad ("Assembly location of Arkil") is the remains of the

Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...

thing Thing or The Thing may refer to: Philosophy * An object * Broadly, an entity * Thing-in-itself (or ''noumenon''), the reality that underlies perceptions, a term coined by Immanuel Kant * Thing theory, a branch of critical theory that focuses ...

or assembly location of a

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numerals, Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 (number), 99 and preceding 101 (number), 101. In mathematics 100 is the square of 10 (number), 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standar ...

Uppland Uppland is a historical province or ' on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. The name literally ...

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 ...

. It is situated on the outskirts of

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

. The remains consist of a rectangular stone formation and two

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 ...

s. The runestones and the assembly location were created by the Skålhamra clan who also had the two Risbyle Runestones made across the lake near their estate. It consequently appears that they owned land on both sides of the lake.A presentation on the website
of the

Stockholm County Museum Stockholm County Museum () is the regional museum of Stockholm County, Sweden. The museum strives to be the natural hub of knowledge for the cultural heritage of the county's residents and to create dialogue around history, present time, and the ...

They also made the runestone U 100 at a path in the forest. Scholars disagree on the function of a Viking Age assembly location. According to one view, all the people in the vicinity assembled there in order to reach agreements and to mete out justice. Another view sees the assemblies as meetings for the chieftains only who merely stated what they had decided to do and where they interrogated and punished their subordinates. Before the

Christianization of Scandinavia The Christianization of Scandinavia, as well as other Nordic countries and the Baltic countries, took place between the 8th and the 12th centuries. The realms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden established their own Archbishop, archdioceses, responsi ...

, the pagan

blót (Old Norse and Old English) or (Old English) are religious ceremonies in Germanic paganism that centred on the killing and offering of an animal to a particular being, typically followed by the communal cooking and eating of its meat. Old Nors ...

s were performed by chieftains and magnates. When Christianity arrived, the Christian rites and especially

baptism Baptism (from ) is a Christians, Christian sacrament of initiation almost invariably with the use of water. It may be performed by aspersion, sprinkling or affusion, pouring water on the head, or by immersion baptism, immersing in water eit ...

were central to the community. It is possible that the Skålhamra clan created the assembly location in order to have settlements around the lake baptized by priests from

Sigtuna Sigtuna is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality situated in the eponymous Sigtuna Municipality, in Stockholm County, Sweden with 9,689 inhabitants in 2020. It is the namesake even though the seat of the municipality is in another locality, Märsta. S ...

. The inscriptions suggest that the location had no continuity from

Norse paganism Old Norse religion, also known as Norse paganism, is a branch of Germanic paganism, Germanic religion which developed during the Proto-Norse language, Proto-Norse period, when the North Germanic peoples separated into Germanic peoples, distinc ...

. Based on the styles of the inscriptions, the assembly location was created in the 1010s, and the runestones are some decades older than the Jarlabanke runestone U 212 which tells of the creation of another assembly location.

Runestones

Below follows a presentation of the runestones based on information collected from 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 ...

project, organized according to location. The transcriptions from runic inscriptions into standardized

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

are in the Swedish and Danish dialect to facilitate comparison with the inscriptions, while the English translation provided by Rundata give the names in standard dialect (the Icelandic and Norwegian dialect).

U 225

The two runestones constitute a twin monument such that the text on U 225 is to be read as continuing on U 226. p. 202. Both runestones were carved by a

runemaster A runemaster or runecarver is a specialist in making runestones. Description More than 100 names of runemasters are known from Viking Age Sweden with most of them from 11th-century eastern Svealand.The article ''Runristare'' in ''Nationalencyklo ...

with the

normalized Normalization or normalisation refers to a process that makes something more normal or regular. Science * Normalization process theory, a sociological theory of the implementation of new technologies or innovations * Normalization model, used in ...

name of Gunnar, with U 225 classified as being in

runestone style :''The term "runestone style" in the singular may refer to the Urnes style.'' The style or design of runestones varied during the Viking Age. The early runestones were simple in design, but towards the end of the runestone era they became increas ...

RAK. This is the classification for inscriptions with a runic text has no dragon or serpent heads and the ends of the runic bands are straight.

U 226

This runestone was also made by Gunnar and is classified as being carved in runestone style Pr1. This is the classification, which is also known as Ringerike style, for those inscriptions that have runic bands that end in serpent or animal heads depicted in profile. In the text there is some question regarding whether the

words ''i grati'' should be translated as meaning "in tears" or "in

lament A lament or lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, often in music, poetry, or song form. The grief is most often born of regret, or mourning. Laments can also be expressed in a verbal manner in which participants lament about something ...

," meaning that Gyríðr composed poetry in

mourning Mourning is the emotional expression in response to a major life event causing grief, especially loss. It typically occurs as a result of someone's death, especially a loved one. The word is used to describe a complex of behaviors in which t ...

her deceased husband. It has been suggested that the inscription Vg 59 in Norra Härene describes another widow who may have composed a lament. U 226 is the only surviving runestone signed by Gunnar, although more than forty other inscriptions have been attributed to him based on stylistic analysis. The runes kunar ik stin for "Gunnarr cut the stone" are carved in a line below the rest of the inscription.

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arkils Tingstad Runestones in Uppland Thing (assembly)

Runestones

U 225

U 226

See also

Notes and references