SUMMARY
Manifold activities of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe in the eighth to the mid-eleventh centuries left
many traces both in material culture and in Old Russian and Old Icelandic written sources. However, most of
them originate from a much later period, long after the Varangians left the political scene, and in describing
events of the ninth and tenth centuries they base on oral tradition. Runic inscriptions and skaldic verses are the
only contemporaneous texts which provide authentic if scarce evidence elucidating relations between Northern
and Eastern Europe during the Viking Age. Being not susceptible to conscious distortion of facts, runic
inscriptions are the most valuable sources of historical information in spite of their brevity, formulaity, imprecise
dating, and difficulties in reading and interpreting the texts.
In 1977 when the corpus of runic inscriptions throwing light on Viking activities in Eastern Europe was
published (CPH), the overwhelming majority of texts originated from Scandinavian memorial stones. Only a few
inscriptions came from the territory of Ancient Rus' and they were mostly executed on different objects. Since
then the number of runic monuments in Eastern Europe, i.e. the territory of Ancient Rus' and the neighbouring
lands, increased many times. During archaeological excavations dozens of fragments of bones, various everyday
objects, etc. were unearthed with Scandinavian runes or runelike signs inscribed on them. These objects were
brought from the North or produced on the spot by Scandinavians who traded, settled, or served as mercenaries
Thus, the present publication includes both runic and runelike inscriptions from Eastern Europe (Part A)
and the texts on memorial stones from Scandinavian countries which supply information about the contacts
between Northern and Eastern Europe (Part B).
Runic inscriptions found in Eastern Europe (Part A) include monuments of older runic script and of
younger futhark. Chapter I presents the older runic inscriptions found in the area of the Chernjakhov archaeo-
logical culture in the modern Western Ukraine. The main ethnic element of this culture was Gothic (or Eastern
Germanic) with Iranian substratum and Slavic inclusions. The Kowel spearhead with the inlaid inscription
tilarids belongs to this group together with a fragment of ceramics and a spindle-whorl. The supplement to this
chapter includes an inscription in Anglo-Saxon runes made in an eight century Northumbrian manuscript from
the National Public Library in St. Petersburg.
Chapter II comprises runic or runelike graffiti on Islamic coins from the hoards of the ninth and tenth
centuries (265 in all). Together with pictorial graffiti they were made by Scandinavian merchants and warriors.
The earliest hoard with runic graffiti is the one from Peterhof near St. Petersburg. It dates to the first decade of
the ninth century (A-II.l). About twenty out of eighty coins of the hoard bear inscriptions in Greek (Ζαχαρίας),
Arabic, Chazarian, and Old Norse. Beside several isolated signs identical to runes u, k, s and p, there seem to be
inscriptions kiltR, OI gildr on one of them, and ubi, OI Úbbi on another one. Several coins from other hoards
are inscribed with the word goð with older runes gud and with younger runes kuþ. Individual signs similar to
runes u and s occur in great numbers but in most cases it is not safe to identify them as runes as their graphics
allow different attributions. Still they are included in the corpus for further investigations.
Various inscriptions on loose objects are combined in Chapter III. They present the everyday literacy of
the vikings and contain texts of diverse form and content.
There is only one late eleventh-century memorial stone discovered during the 1905 excavations on the
island of Berezan' in the mouth of the Dnieper. It was raised by companions of the deceased on their travel to or
from Byzantium: krani kerþi half þisi iftir kal filaka sin (A-III.2.I). The absence of runic stones in Ancient
Rus' does not seem strange in spite of a large number of Scandinavians who settled there. The newcomers left
their ancestral estates with which memorial stones were traditionally connected and found themselves in a
different cultural milieu. In the ninth and tenth centuries they settled in urban centers with no estates of their
own, and by the time they acquired land possessions, about a century or two after their arrival to Eastern Europe,
the custom of raising runic stones lost its meaning for them.
The topography of finds and the types of runic inscriptions in Ancient Rus' provide ample material
partially corroborating the existing picture of Scandinavian penetration in Eastern Europe based on ar-
chaeological data and partially putting forward new historical problems.
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