Summer bike ride

We have Summer! Finally. Not Perth Summer though, but the Swedish equivalent. That means that we might get 30C today. This is Småhamra in Österhaninge. Oxeye daisy next to the wheat field. I arrived via a bike-ride through the forest in the national park Tyresta. I had my buddy Jim with me. He is a nerd. Or a geek. So he had to shoot photos of the newly discovered runestone at Småhamra for a 3D-rendering. It was a warmish ride and Jim's bike broke down a little later so he had to walk it home. The tired horse lives at the Hammarby farm.

Another Runestone Update

My third post about the Viking Era runestone that was found last spring in a field at Småhamra. Previous posts here and here. Since my last post the farmer Rolf Norlin, has been out ploughing again, and just as my friend Jim guessed last year when I told him about the historic find, Rolf found the missing piece of the runestone in the same field. So it is now possible to read the whole inscription, and the discussion now is if the two pieces should be put together or left like you can see here.

Runestone Update

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.

A Historical Find

A while back Rolf Norlin at the Hammarby farm was ploughing one of his fields near Småhamra when he suddenly hit a big rock. A closer look at the rock gave him the surprise of his life. He had just found a never before seen runestone from the Viking Era. He contacted a local archaeologist ( I know him as well), whom I guess was very excited. The runestone is in remarkable good condition. You can easily read the runic inscription although a part of the stone is missing. I don't have an exact translation, but the inscription reads something like: Gunnar and Ulf and Sighjälm had this stone raised after Halvdan their father. There's also a cross and a religious reference, saying something like May God protect his soul. I have never before seen that on a Haninge runestone. One reason for the superb condition of the inscription is probably that the stone has been buried in the field for nearly one thousand years. The experts from the Swedish National Heritage Board will visit the site for the first time later today and I wanted to beat them to it! The two people in the photos are my brother in law, who as it happens visited this area two days ago without seeing the runestone. The other person is Sune Nilsson, whose maternal grandparents lived in a house just meters away from the stone.