King’s College 2004 v Mistress Gunnvör sílfrahárr
13
Sources:
Interpreting Runic
Inscriptions
Rundata and the inscription codes
vRundata is a huge
database of runic inscriptions, in Swedish, containing many names in their original spellings.
vEach inscription has a
scholarly code, or signum, composed of letters representing the inscription’s find location and a
number.
Caveats - problems in interpretation
vLack of a coherent
standard orthography.
vImperfect preservation
such as missing pieces or defacement.
vTransliterations
from runes don't necessarily reflect the spoken language at the time.
Caveats - problems in dating
vNo carbon dating
possible.
vLetter forms and
linguistic clues one source of dating.
vAssociated
archaeological finds may help in dating.