Tjurkö bracteates

The Tjurkö Bracteates (DR BR75 U and DR BR76 U) are two bracteates (coins) found on Tjurkö, Eastern Hundred, Blekinge, Sweden, bearing Elder Futhark inscriptions, in Proto-Norse.

Tjurkö 1 or DR BR75 U, dated to between AD 400 and 650 (the Germanic Iron Age), now at the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities (SHM 1453:25). It is a typical C-bracteate, like the Vadstena bracteate showing a stylized head in the center, above a horse and beneath a bird. This iconograpy is usually interpreted as depicting an early form of Odin with his associated animals (horse and raven). The inscription reads:runic|ᚹᚢᚱᛏᛖᚱᚢᚾᛟᛉᚨᚾᚹᚨᛚᚺᚨᚲᚢᚱᚾᛖ··ᚺᛖᛚᛞᚨᛉᚲᚢᚾᛁᛗᚢᚾᛞᛁᚢ···Transliteration::wurte runoz an walhakurne heldaz kunimudiuTranscription::Wurte runoz an walhakurne Heldaz KunimundiuTranslation::Heldaz wrought runes on 'the foreign grain' for Kunimunduz.There is a consensus that "walha-kurne" is a compound word referring to the bracteate itself, and that "walha" (cognate with Modern English "Welsh") means "foreign, non-Germanic" - here perhaps more specifically "Roman" or "Gallic". However, differing explanations have been proposed for the second element "kurne". According to one interpretation (Looijenga 2003, p. 42), "kurne" is the dative singular of "kurna" (cognate with Modern English "corn"), and "walha-kurne" "Roman or Gallic grain" is a kenning for "gold"; cf. the compounds "valhöll", "valrauðr" and "valbaugar" in the Old Norse poem Atlakviða. An alternative interpretation of the second element sees "kurne" as an early loan from Latin "corona" "crown" (Brate 1922, pp. 14-15), but this is unlikely ("crowns" as currency appear only in medieval times, from images of crowns minted on the coins' faces). The personal name "Heldaz" is derived from "*held-" "battle" (Old English "hild", Old Norse "hildr", etc.), while "Kunimundiu" (dative singular of Kunimunduz) is from "kuni-" "kin" (which appears with connotations of royalty as the first element of Old English compounds, cf. Modern English "king") and "mund-" "protection".

Tjurkö 2, or DR BR76 U, is dated to the same period and has an inscription of just three runes, reading ota.

References

*Erik Brate, "Sverges runinskrifter" (1922) [http://runeberg.org/runor/0014.html]
*Tineke Looijenga, "Texts and Contexts of the Earliest Runic Inscriptions" (2003).
*Rundata

External links

*http://www.arild-hauge.com/danske_runeinnskrifter4.htm
*http://skaldic.arts.usyd.edu.au/db.php?table=mss&id=15292
*http://skaldic.arts.usyd.edu.au/db.php?table=images&id=21004