OSLO, NORWAY—According to a Newsweek report, inscribed sandstone fragments recovered from several different burials in Norway’s Svingerud grave field were originally part of a single stone engraved with a mixture of runes and other markings. “Rune-stones likely had both ceremonial and practical intentions,” explained research team member Kristel Zilmer of the University of Oslo. This stone may have first been used as a single grave marker, although the inscriptions are thought to have been carved at different times, and by different people, sometime between 50 B.C. and A.D. 275. The stone therefore offers scholars the opportunity to study how the use of runestones changed over time. Team member Steinar Solheim of the University of Oslo added that the discovery is a rare example of finding runic fragments in well-preserved, datable archaeological contexts. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Antiquity. For more, go to "The Road to Runes."
