Bryggen inscriptions
Around 670 runic inscriptions on wood and bone from the Bergen wharf: business notes, name tags, love letters, obscenities, prayers and school exercises. The largest runic find of the twentieth century, and the best evidence we have for ordinary runic literacy.
At a glance
- Alphabet
- Medieval runes
- Date
- 12th–14th century
- Where
- Bryggen, Bergen, Norway
- Signature
- N B-series
The text
Why none is reproduced here.
This entry covers a class of source rather than a single object, so there is no one text to give. Look it up under N B-series in the standard catalogues, where the readings are given with their apparatus.
Where it survives
Recovered from 1955 onwards during excavations at Bryggen, the medieval wharf district of Bergen, after a fire cleared the site. Most are on flattened pine sticks; the waterlogged ground preserved wood that would have rotted anywhere else, which is precisely why nothing comparable survives from elsewhere.
Why it matters
The Bryggen material overturns the picture of runes as a specialist or ceremonial script. It contains ownership tags, merchants' notes, Latin prayers, a line of Virgil, obscene boasts, a rune-stick that is plainly a writing exercise, and the crib that allowed the jötunvillur cipher to be decoded. It is also the largest single body of runic writing in existence, and it is medieval and Christian rather than Viking-Age and pagan.
Common misconceptions
Claims about this object that circulate widely and do not hold up.
The Bryggen finds are consistently absent from popular writing about runes, which stops at the Viking Age. The largest, most varied and most informative runic corpus there is comes from four centuries after the Vikings, from a Christian trading town.
Runes attested here (3)
Every dictionary entry that cites this object, with the reason it gives.
- ÞursYounger
Hundreds of runic messages on wood recovered from the Bergen wharf: business notes, name tags, love letters, insults and charms. The largest single body of runic material anywhere.
- NauðrYounger
Everyday runic writing on wood, showing the alphabet in ordinary rather than monumental use.
- BjarkanYounger
Wooden sticks carrying everyday messages: the largest runic corpus of all.
Sources
Full references on the sources page.