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The runestones are unevenly distributed in Scandinavia: The majority are found in Sweden, estimated at between 1,700 [2] and 2,500 (depending on definition). Denmark has 250 runestones, and Norway has 50. [2] There are also runestones in other areas reached by the Viking expansion, especially in the British Isles. [3]
The Snoldelev stone, one of the oldest runestones in Denmark. The tradition of raising stones that had runic inscriptions first appeared in the 4th and 5th century, in Norway and Sweden, and these early runestones were usually placed next to graves, [2] [3] though their precise function as commemorative monuments has been questioned. [4]
The runestones are unevenly distributed in Scandinavia: Denmark has 250 runestones, Norway has 50 while Iceland has none. Sweden has as many as between 1,700 and 2,500 depending on definition. The Swedish district of Uppland has the highest concentration with as many as 1,196 inscriptions in stone, whereas Södermanland is second with 391.
The runestone styles were part of the general evolution of art in Scandinavia. This is a part of the decoration of the Urnes stave church which is in the same as the later runestone styles. The term "runestone style" in the singular may refer to the Urnes style. The style or design of runestones varied during the Viking Age.
Below follows a presentation of the runestones based on the Rundata project. The transcriptions into Old Norse are mostly in the Swedish and Danish dialect to facilitate comparison with the inscriptions, while the English translation provided by Rundata gives the names in the de facto standard dialect (the Icelandic and Norwegian dialect):
The origin of the Rundata project was a 1986 database of Swedish inscriptions at Uppsala University for use in the Scandinavian Languages Department. [2] At a seminar in 1990 it was proposed to expand the database to cover all Nordic runic inscriptions, but funding for the project was not available until a grant was received in 1992 from the Axel och Margaret Ax:son Johnsons foundation. [2]
The England runestones (Swedish: Englandsstenarna) are a group of about 30 runestones in Scandinavia which refer to Viking Age voyages to England. [1] They constitute one of the largest groups of runestones that mention voyages to other countries, and they are comparable in number only to the approximately 30 Greece Runestones [2] and the 26 Ingvar Runestones, of which the latter refer to a ...
The name "Rök Stone" is something of a tautology: the stone is named after the village, "Rök", but the village is probably named after the stone, "Rauk" or "Rök" meaning "skittle-shaped stack/stone" in Old Norse. The stone is unique in a number of ways. It contains a fragment of what is believed to be a lost piece of Norse mythology.