[gothic-l] Re: The Eruli and Runes

Tue Dec 18 07:43:51 UTC 2001

--- In gothic-l at y..., "troels_brandt" <trbrandt at p...> wrote:
> --- In gothic-l at y..., "faltin2001" <dirk at s...> wrote:
> > --- In gothic-l at y..., "troels_brandt" <trbrandt at p...> wrote:
> > > Tore and Bertil,
> > >
> > > I am not sure I understand the background for combining runes -
> and
> > > the runestones in Blekinge - with the Heruls.
> > >
> > > To my knowledge Semitic and Phoenician alphabets formed the
basis
> > of
> > > the Etruscian and an early Latin alphabet - the latter
containing
> > > most signs similar to the runes. Personally I believe the
> arguments
> > > put forward by Erik Moltke that the runes were "invented" by
> people
> > > knowing this Latin alphabet but living in an independent
Germanic
> > > culture in a certain distance of the Romans in the first two
> > > centuries AD. I think the intensity in the Southeastern Europe
of
> > > early finds is too low to point as the only indication at
Heruls
> > and
> > > Goths as inventors, and we know trade routes making such finds
> > > possible. The high intensity of finds is in Scandinavia (north
of
> > the
> > > Ejder) and from the 6th century also in Southern Germany.
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi Troels,
> >
> > that is true. The University of Kiel's Runenprojekt lists all
known
> > runic inscriptions and gives the following distribution:
> >
> > Denmark: 125
> > Germany: 115 incl. 10 from Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland
> > Sweden: 70 incl. 16 from Gotland
> > Norway: 65
> >
> > Whereas on supposedly Gothic territory:
> > Poland: 5
> > Rumania: 2
> > Russia: 1
> > Hungary: 7
> >
>
> Dirk,
>
> As the German finds are concentrated in Southern Germany and to my
> knowledge began around 500-550, and some of the first finds were
> Danish, Erik Moltke pointed at Denmark as a possible area of
origin.

Troels,

I suppose Denmark, i.e. Jutland including Schleswig-Holstein is not a
bad guess for the origin of the runes. -There are really really two
concentration of runic inscriptions in Germany. The south German
runes, made mainly by Alamanni and dating from 500AD onwards and
North German Runes, which according to the Kiel University are the
oldest runes of all inscriptions, including the Weser runes from
around 180AD and the Meldorf (near Hamburg) runes from around 25AD.
Runic inscriptions from Germany include also a number of East
Germanic inscriptions like the Dahmdorf blade.

In general, the frequency distribution that I provided was not meant
to show a relation of finds between Scandinavia and Germany, but
between Scandinavia with Germany on the one side and the East
Germanic areas on the other. Such a comparison is meaning full
because the difference is so large indicating that the Goths were
likely not the inventors of the runes.

Overall, the number of runic inscriptions is so small that a
comparison of frequency distributions among countries like Germany,
Denmark, Sweden and Norway is practically meaningless. The find
frequency can be easily distorted by find circumstances, preservation
conditions, local customs etc. Thus, the custom of inscribing big
stones has developed almost exclusively in Scandinavia, while further
south latin letters were used. As such inscriptions are more likely
to survive, it greatly increases the number of occurances. If people
in other areas inscribed only perishable objects, this would greatly
distort the distribution. E.g. the survival of the rune-bones of the
Weser is only due to unusual environmental conditions. There were
probably thousands of these bones originally.

> > >
> > > There are evident archaeological signs of Eastgermanics in the
> area
> > > already before 500AD,
> >
> >
> > Can you provide a reference for this please. Or point to
> > cemetaries/settlements that are considered to display the influx
of
> > an East Germanic culture into Sweden. I am really very interested
> in
> > this - and don't get me wrong I am not crusading against your
> > theory.  I recently asked two Swedish archaeologists who both
said
> > independently and in the strongest form, that there is not even
the
> > slightest evidence for an East Germanic migration to Sweden, only
> > isolated objects, and even of those there are only very few. I
just
> > like to find out what the real situation is.
> >
> >
> > cheers,
> > Dirk
>
> I made an assumption necessary for my discussion with Tore and
> Bertil, where I did not write "migration", as I don't see this as a
> normal migration - and neither did you in your last quote.

There is a fairly new article by Walter Pohl "Die gentes im Vorfeld
von Ostgoten und Franken" (or similar, I can get the exact quote,
were he devotes a section to the Heruls with an interesting
interpretation. His upcoming book 'Die Voelkerwanderung: Eroberung
und Integration', might also contain this interpretation of the
Herulic kingdom at the Danube. He basically sees the Heruls at the
Danube as a very small warrior elite that perpetuated the lifestyle
adopted from their former Hunnic masters. Thus, they dominated and
lived off a majoritiy population of 'Roman' provincials and Suevian
Germanics.

>I do not
> want to repeat this discussion.

Neither do I, but new material and interpretations come up all the
time.

If you want to read the current stage
> of my investigations you are welcome to read my website, but you
have
> already got some of these examples from Ingemar and Bertil:
(Herulic
> according to Charlotte Fabech: "Offerfundene i Soesdala, Fulltofta
og
> Vennebo" (1991))

I am surprised that an archaeologist makes such an ethnic
attribution, escpecially without any real reference material. In
other words there is no undisputable Herulic material culture.

>and new finds in Vestergoetaland (Ingemar).

I have to ask Ingemar about that.

Dirk

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