Uppland Runic Inscription 485 or U 485 is 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 number for a

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 ...

memorial

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 ...

that is located in Marma, which is about six kilometers northeast of

Knivsta Knivsta is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Knivsta Municipality, Uppsala County, Sweden with 20,133 inhabitants. It is known for being one of the safest areas in Sweden, consistently ranking among the top 5 safest municipalities ...

Uppsala County Uppsala County () is a county or '' län'' on the eastern coast of Sweden, whose capital is the city of Uppsala. It borders the counties of Dalarna, Stockholm, Södermanland, Västmanland, Gävleborg, and the Baltic Sea. Province The nor ...

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 ...

, which was in the historic province of

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 ...

Description

This inscription consists of runic text in the younger futhark carved on a serpent or

lindworm The lindworm (''worm'' meaning snake, see germanic dragon), also spelled lindwyrm or lindwurm, is a mythical creature in Northern, Western and Central European folklore that traditionally has the shape of a giant serpent monster which lives de ...

that circles a central area where it then becomes intertwined with a ribbon beast in the center. A

Christian cross The Christian cross, seen as representing the crucifixion of Jesus, is a religious symbol, symbol of Christianity. It is related to the crucifix, a cross that includes a ''corpus'' (a representation of Jesus' body, usually three-dimensional) a ...

is near the top of the inscription. The granite runestone, which is 1.8 meters in height, was placed on its current base in 1925. It is classified as being carved 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 ...

Pr5, which is also known as

Urnes style Viking art, also known commonly as Norse art, is a term widely accepted for the art of Scandinavian Norsemen and Vikings, Viking settlements further afield—particularly in the British Isles and Iceland—during the Viking Age of the 8th-11th ...

. This runestone style is characterized by slim and stylized animals that are interwoven into tight patterns. The animal heads are typically seen in profile with slender almond-shaped eyes and upwardly curled appendages on the noses and the necks. This stone is considered to be a good example of an inscription in style Pr5. The inscription is signed with the runes ofaigr ybiʀ by the

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 ...

Öpir Öpir or ''Öper'' (Old Norse: ''Øpiʀ''/''Œpir'', meaning "shouter") was a runemaster who flourished during the late 11th century and early 12th century in Uppland, Sweden.The article ''Öpir'' in ''Nationalencyklopedin'' (1996). He was the m ...

, who was active in the Uppland area in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. The first word in

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 ...

is ''Ofæigʀ'', which combines a negative prefix ''ó'' with ''feigr'' to mean "death bound" or "fated to die" but without any negative connotations intended, thus making a name meaning "Not Doomed." This is the only runic inscription of Öpir with this first name, and it has been suggested that this was the given name of Öpir. p. 16. The name he used in his other surviving signed inscriptions was the

sobriquet A sobriquet ( ) is a descriptive nickname, sometimes assumed, but often given by another. A sobriquet is distinct from a pseudonym in that it is typically a familiar name used in place of a real name without the need for explanation; it may beco ...

or nickname Öpir, which means "Shouter." The runic text states that the stone was raised by two brothers named Þrótti and Ingulfr as a memorial to their father Sigviðr and by a woman named Ingifastr to her husbandman. The name Ingifastr was carved in runes as inkifa=st, which uses a

bind rune A bind rune or bindrune () is a Migration Period Germanic typographic ligature, ligature of two or more Runic alphabet, runes. They are extremely rare in Viking Age inscriptions, but are common in earlier (Proto-Norse) and later (medieval) inscri ...

to combine an a-rune and an s-rune. Another inscription which used a bind rune to combine these same two runes, which was also signed by Öpir, is the Varangian runestone Sö 308 from Vid Järnavägen. Bind runes appear disproportionately in names in runic texts, and it has been suggested that they may have been sometimes used to draw attention to a name, similar to the way that

initial In a written or published work, an initial is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter (books), chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is ultimately derived from the Latin ''initiālis'', which means '' ...

capital letters Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally ''#Majuscule, majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally ''#Minuscule, minuscule'') in the written representation of certain langua ...

are used to start names in European languages today. p. 194-195.

Inscription

Transliteration of the runes into Latin characters

:þroti ' uk ' ingulfr ' litu ' rita stain ' iftiʀ ' sihuiþ ' faþur ' sin ' uk ' inkifa=st ' at ' bonta ' sin ' in ' ofaigr ' ybiʀ ' ristiProject Samnordisk Runtextdatabas Svensk
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entry for U 485.

Transcription into Old Norse

:''Þrotti ok Ingulfʀ letu retta stæin æftiʀ Sigvið, faður sinn, ok Ingifast at bonda sinn. En Ofæigʀ/ofæigʀ Øpiʀ risti.''

Translation in English

:Þrótti and Ingulfr had the stone erected in memory of Sigviðr, their father; and Ingifastr in memory of her husbandman. And Ófeigr / the not doomed Öpir carved.

References

External links

Photograph of U 485
on Arild Hauge's website. {{coord, 59, 46, 54, N, 17, 50, 13, E, region:SE_type:landmark_source:kolossus-svwiki, display=title Uppland Runic Inscription 0485