Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.2000, Page 63

RÚNARISTUR Á ÍSLANDI
67
Summary
Icelandic runic inscriptions
This register of Icelandic runic inscriptions contains 96 numbered carvings, 55 on
(grave)stones or in caves and 41 on objects of various kinds.
The oldest inscription is on a small wooden tablet, found in 1994 during excavations
on Viðey (56). The youngest runes appear on at bed-board from 1878. The oldest
gravestones (34), (40) are from the 13th century and the youngest (43) (55) are from the
middle of the 19th century.
Arngrímur Jónsson the learned mentions gravestones with runes in his famous work
Crymogæa (1609) but the oldest drawings of such stones appear in Eggert Ólafsson’s and
Bjarni Pálsson’s Book of travels (1752-57). In this well known work Eggert Ólafsson
describes two stones, Borg 1 (26) and Hvammur 1 (20). He believed Borg 1 to be from the
grave of the farnous and tragic hero of the Laxdæla saga Kjartan Ólafsson. This tradition
prevailed into the 19th century when Konrad Maurer correcdy interpreted the runes.
In the 1830:es and 1840:es the poet and naturalist Jónas Hallgrímsson documented 19
runic carvings, among them the small stone on Flekkulciði (5), which was believed to be a
gravemound from the time of the settlement. Jónas made excavations on “the mound” and
discovered that it was but an ordinary lava hill.
In the late 19th and early 20th century the philologists Björn M. Ólsen and Finnur
Jónsson and the archaeologist Matthías Þórðarson examined many runic inscriptions and
wrote books and articles on the Icelandic runic tradition. In 1942 the Dane Anders
Bæksted published the corpus Islands Runeindskrifter. In the introduction he describes the
history and development of the specific Icelandic futhark and dates the inscriptions as far as
possible with the help of the shape of the runes and the language. In the older inscriptions
is written: + (R N TR her ligr (40) with h- and e-runes of older types while in younger
inscriptions is written: XltR riPPHR hier liggur (31) with h- and e-runes of younger
types.This method of dating is however not always reliable, many inscriptions are a mixture
of older and younger runic types, for example Borg 1 (26). Some of the gravestones are of
course easy to date as the persons named in the inscriptions are known from other sources.
Many of the household articles with runes contain the year in which the object was made.
The about 30 inscriptions in Paradisarhellir (11) are without doubt fronr different times.
The oldest ones are probably from the 15th century while the youngest are from the early
20th century.
The runes on the whet-stone from Hvammur (72) resemble the runes on the wooden
spade from Indriðastaðir (69), which dates fronr the 12th century and therefore they
indicate that the object can be as old as from the 12th or 13th century, that is from the
times of the Sturlungs.
From about 1200 are the runes on the famous carved church door from Valþjófsstaður
(88) and probably even those on the spindle-whorls from Hruni (60) Stóramörk and (65).
The one frorn Hruni bears the name Þóra and it is not impossible, although difficult to
prove, that this is the nanre of the nrother of Gissur Þorvaldsson. She lived at Hruni at the
beginning of the 13th century.