[gothic-l] Re: ØVRE STABU runes - from 2nd century.

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Hails Francisc!
I am sorry if the quote I sent makes you angry.
Of course I have heard about the neckring of
Pietroasa. I even know that Hermann Reichert
of Vienna (who Bertil surely remembers from
the old Oldnorsenet) wrote a paper about.
My personal knowledge of it is from a history
book we've always had im my family, as long as
I can remember, which was written by Alexander
Bugge, the son of Sophus Bugge. Sophus Bugge
was one of the important 19th century figures
who was among the first to sytematically
survey the oldest Scandianavian runic inscriptions.
I also know the ring from R.I.Page's book on
runes. R.I.Page's books have been repeatedly
recommended as one of the best "down to earth"
approaches to the runes. He is connected to
the British Museum or something like that.

I also recall Reichert mentioning that the
Pietroasa ring had once been broken (sawed?)
and that one rune was hence a bit doubtful.
But an accurate drawing existed (somewhere)
and by investigating this, the doubtful
rune could be read with more certainty.
(I quote this after memory. It was
something to that effect)

But exactly what consequences this one rune
had for the reading of the text, I do not recall.

Can you give me a local tip about how to remember
the localisation of Pietroasa? I know so little
about Rumenian geography. Is there a river called
Theiss or is that in Hungary? The only thing that
has become fairly well established in my mind
is that Romania=Dacia.  But when *you* read that,
you may perhaps even shake your head. I know so
little that it could easily be different from
the simplifications that I try to get by with.

Tineke Looijnga, is acoording to the web page
that I quoted (http://www.ub.rug.nl/erldoc/dis/  ..
..etc) a woman from Groningen, which is one of the
11 Dutch Provinces (Royaume du Pays Bas),
which is located top right on the map. That is
close to Bremen in Germany. Groningen is both
the name of the province as well as the name of
the city that is the capital of the province.
The University of Groningen is there. It is
next to the province of Friesland, where
they still speak the old Frisian language.
Looijenga sounds to me like a Frisian name
because it ends in -ga. Usually Frisians are nice
people ;) and a lot of Dutch citizens have Frisian
names, although most of them don't speak the language
any more. But in the Middle Ages I think "Frisia"
indicated a much larger area than today.

I think Looijenga's book is very interesting,
because for the first time I felt I got some kind of
total overview. That does of course not mean that I agree
with her thesis, or with everything she says. The
book is interesting because of the various arguments and
decriptions she has collected. I feel that she leaves
the reader room enough to interpret things differently.

The on-line book is a doctoral dissertation originally
submitted in 1997. I don't know how long her book
has been on the net. (the book is a little over
200 pages. Maybe it was 241)



>Hails allaim!
>
>--- In gothic-l at y..., keth at o... wrote:
>> ...
>> I will finish by adding another Looijnga quote.
>> On page 79 she writes:
>> "Runic knowledge among the Goths, if there was any
>> was most likely tied to Scandinavia, because the Goths
>> originated from there, and because there were continuous
>> contacts between Denmark and the Black Sea region in
>> which the Goths had settled."
>>
>
>I feel I'm becoming angry. Who is this Looijnga, who seems that never
>heard about the East Germanic runic inscriptionS, one of them at least
>being Gothic for sure, namely the longest one, that was found in my
>country, at Pietroasa. The necklace where this inscription was carved
>belongs to the gold treasure of Pietroasa, that is attributed by most
>researchers to the Visigothic leader Athanaric. The inscription is in
>old Futhark and was differently interpreted by different authors, the
>most common being GUTANI WIHAILAG = "of the Goths sacred-holy
>[property]" (I already wrote several time about this to the Gothic-L).
>And note also that some of the Gothic letter names are similar to the
>rune names and that some letters of Wulfila's alphabet (o, u, Þ) are
>borrowed from the runic script, facts that strongly suggest that the
>Goths used the runes before the alphabet of Wulfila.
>
>Francisc
>
>GUTANI WIHAILAG!!!

I think one of the problems with the internet is the abundance of
information. This leads many people to read very quickly, and very
often they simply skip over sentences. For example with the
above: Now I nearly skipped over some of your very excellent
logical arguments.

So if you will allow me to take out a piece of what you said above
and repeat it, then maybe it will help to increase people's awareness
of this. You said:

     "Some of the Gothic letter names
      are similar to the rune names."

Which now appears to me as a _very_ strong argument for
tying the Goths to runes. Immediately I also say:
This I must not forget.  Looijenga does seem to have
forgotten it, when she wrote as she did. And the best way
to enter this firmly into memory, will then be by
way of some examples, in order to make it more explicit.
(and I hope you forgive me if you feel I am needlessly
reiterating) Here I am however frustrated, because a book
like Braune & Ebbinghaus does not seem to mention the
names of the gothic letters. Looking at the shapes of
the letters (p. 14), I can only see hints of runes in
two letters: F and O.

I do however have a book by "Faulmann" that lists old
aphabets. Faulmann (p. 164) mentions papers by ZACHER
and KIRCHHOFF (do you have the exact references?) and
says these "Möso-Gothic" runic names have come down to
us together with Wulfila's alphabet, but gives no
further references:

Ans     Bairika    Giba     Dags       Aihvus        Quairþr  Iuja/Ius
Hagls   Thaurnus   Eis      Kaunzama   Lagus         Manna    Nauþs
Jer     Urus       Pairþr   Raida      Sojil/Sauil   Tius     Vinja
Faihu   Iggus      Hvair    Oþal.

Now that I have the names, I can of course go to Lehmann and see
what he has to say: ... But alas! Lehmann has not bothered to
enter these runic names into his dictionary, whereas Faulmann
definitely gives the impression that these are the original
Gothic letter names associated with Wulfila's alphabet. It
is little disappointments like these that makes me say that
Lehmann's book might have been more inclusive. He does have
something under "giban" (G85.), where he says: "geuua name of
g-rune in Sal." And "Sal." = Salzburg-Vienna Manuscript.
Well, at least that is something!

If I then go back to Braune/Ebbinghaus I find (page 8):
Codex Vindobonensis 795 (=oft ungenau 'Salzburg-Wiener Aluin
Hanschrift') - well, why didn't Lehmann say so. -
9/10. Ja.s enthält: auf fol. 20 r ein unvollständiges got.
Aphabet (bis zum Buchstaben u); auf fol. 29 v einige Abkürzungen,
zwei unvollständige Alphabete des Sigma-Typs (eines davon nur
aus dieser Hs. bekannt, das 'Wiener Alphabet') mit nebenstehenden
Buchstabennamen' ... Anm 14. ... Daß die Buchstabennamen nicht
die got. des 4. Jhs. räpresentierten, stellte fest J.Bloomfield,
Saga-Book of the Viking Club 12, 177ff., 209ff.

Are these then the same "Möso-Gothic" letter-names mentioned
by Faulmann?

Best regards
Keth

PS are you familiar with Bloomfield's article?





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