[gothic-l] Looijenga's book about North-Sea runes.

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

New on-line book on North-Sea runes, by Tineke Looijenga.
---------------------------------------------------------
The book was mentioned by Dirk in several posts last week.
I've been spending all day reading this very interesting
on-line book, that was published in 1997 at the "Rijksuni-
versiteit" in Groningen, Nederland. I believe it was her
doctoral dissertation. But right now I lost the exact
book title when I logged out. The web-address I do, however,
still have, since I specifically copied it down in order to
send it to this list. Here it is:

http://www.ub.rug.nl/eldoc/dis/arts/j.h.looijenga/

(that should bring you to the book's chapter one)
(the other chapters are reached by changing the ch-number)

You will then reach the book in pdf format, which means that
you'll need to have Adobe Acrobat installed on your disk.

With my old computer, reading the book was a rather slow
experience (syrup), but for those who have newer equipment
than my 10y old machine, it ought to cause no problem.
Some font problems I had too. But that may be because my
vs. of Acrobat is over a year old. The problem was not serious.
It just meant that I couldn't see the "thorn" and one or two
other characters, which didn't matter because I know where
the "thorn" belongs in ON words - and if you see a gap, you
know it is probably just the "thorn" that is missing.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The title of the book was something like this:
"Runes around the North Sea and on the Continent AD 150-700."
Jantina Helena Looijenga. -number of pages: 241.

I immediately noted that this was an interesting book,
because it gives a sytematic survey of nearly all
runic inscriptions in the older Futhark. And what is of
particular interest, is that the runes that have been found
during the last 20 years in the Danish bogs are also
discussed, together with the rest of the inscriptions that
have been known longer. I also noted that the author
repeatedly refers to a Dutch author such as "Van Es" (1967)
about whom I had not heard earlier. Van Es wrote about
the Iron Age in the Netherlands and what can be known
about the events that took place there. That is of course
very interesting, because the Netherlands was at that time
strategically located on the itinerary that connected
Jutland to England, where the Anglo-Saxon emigration
took place. In particular, "Frisia", or "Friesland" as
it is called in today's Netherlands, was much larger
then, and was not without its runic inscriptions.
Looijenga then manages to relate the Frisian finds to
those in Denmark and England in a convincing manner.

Autor Looijenga also quotes Danish author Lotte Hedeager
who has been very active publishing on Iron Age topics
during the last 10 years (at least). That makes the book
interesting to read, because the material is presented
in a convincing manner, especially when you know she bases
her opinion on other authors, whom you are aquainted with
as leading scholars in neighboring countries, from earlier
readings.

Also Danish runologist Erik Moltke should be mentioned, who
published a comprehensive volume on runes around 15 years ago.
Moltke had, if I recall correctly, a theory that the runes
were of Danish origin, because that was the area where the
greatest quantity of the oldest runes had been found.
(Moltke 1951: "Er runeskriften opstået i Danmark?")

Looijenga, in contrast to Moltke, launches the theory
that the runes are of West-Germanic origin, and came into
being among West-Germanic people who lived in close contact
with Roman legionaries and traders, that is, in the neigbor-
hood of the Limes. So we have Looijenga with a theory of
the runic origins in the Netherlands, and Moltke in Denmark.

The difference, as I understand it from my on-line reading,
is then an essential one in order to determine what branch
of the Germanic language it is that the earliest runic
inscriptions show. Are the inscriptions to be classified as
belonging to the North-Germanic branch of early Germanic language
(i.e. as "Danish"), or are they to be classified as belonging
to the West-Germanic branch of early Germanic (i.e. as
"Dutch")?

Of importance here are the 9 runic inscriptions found at
"Illerup", which is the large weapon find dating from around
AD 2oo, that can now be seen at the "Moesgård Museum" near Århus
in Jutland. They are then, due to the early date of the
finds, among the earliest inscriptions that exist.
The find has been extensively documented by Jørgen Ilkjær
and Claus von Carnap-Bornheim, in an impressive series of
8 large volumes, published in Denmark during the 1990's.

The weapons must have belonged to a small army of invadors,
who were, however, defeated, and the weapons were after the victory
deposited in a nearby lake, probably in gratitude to the Gods
for the victory. 9 of the items show runic inscriptions.
Ilkjær and Von Carnap-Bornheim have published papers that show
that the origin of this defeated army must have been the
South-Western part of peninsular Scandinavia. i.e. the area
of origin includes all of South and West Norway, as well as
part of inland Sweden (middle part).

The tricky part is, however, that many of the weapons have
been shown to be Roman imports. That is, by inference,
Roman imports to peninsular Scandinavia. The quastion that
then arises, is whether the runes were inscribed on the
Scandinavian peninsula, OR whether they perhaps had followed
were made. This is a crucial question, for if the runes
were added by the users of the weapons, then this would constitute
a good argument for a North-Germanic origin of the runes.
However, if the weapons were produced further South, among
the West-Germans, perhaps in the Netherlands or maybe further
south along the Rhine, for example in the vicinity of Cologne,
and the runes were already added there, then that would constitute
a stong argument for a West-Germanic origin of the runes.

I will stop here.
I plan, however, to write up some excerpts from
the book, trying to see them in the context that
was outlined above. In the meantime I wish you good
luck in trying to locate the book!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PS The above comments were only written after reading
through the book on-line. Since this is a manner of
reading is often uncomfortable, the reading was
correspondingly quick. These comments are therefore only
to be read with this in mind. For a more exact review,
I recommend downloading the book itself. If you were
already interested in runes beforehand, I think you will
enjoy it.

Best regards
Keth



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