As you might remember I visited Småhamra a few months ago. That's where a previously unknown rune-stone from the Viking Era was discovered by the farmer Rolf Norlin. The plan was to have a ceremonial raising of the stone on the spot where it was found. The archaeologist Roger Wikell who translated the runic inscription was planning to invite a few people, including the farmer, the local historical association and one or two journalists. Sadly it didn't happen that way as someone from the Swedish National Heritage Board decided to do it on her own more or less. Roger was very upset about this. He also said that the stone had been poorly positioned and that it might fall over any day. I had a look for myself a while back. It looked OK to me, but then again, I'm no expert, and the last I heard about it from Roger was that he is hoping to move the stone come the spring. Anyway, this is how it looks now.
7 comments:
It's too bad all the different authorities could not get together and have a proper ceremony.
But it is exciting to see your runestone again, standing up this time.
It's an impressive thing anyway!
Oh dear politics always a problem
Looks like a really big stone to be 'undiscovered'. Hmmmm
Too often some bureaucrat gets in the way of doing things right! But I think if it falls, it falls, and someone can arrange to have it righted again!
Gosh would love to know how long that stone has been around Steffe and what does it signify!
It is around one thousand years old. It is in such good condition that Roger thinks that it fell not long after it was made, so it has been in the ground for 900 years or so. You can read the translation on my previous post in the matter, but generally when someone rich or important person died during the Viking Era in this part of the country his family would sometimes have a rune-stone made in his memory.
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