The Rediscovery of U 170: Runestones, Churchyards, and Burial
Grounds in Sweden
Shane McLeod*
Abstract - This note reports on the recent rediscovery of runestone U 170 near Bogesund in Sweden. In particular, the
position of the monument within the 11th-century landscape is examined in light of the informative text that provides important
information on early churchyard burial in central Sweden. The likely reason for placing a Christian monument at
the edge of a pre-Christian burial ground is commented upon, including the likelihood of continued ancestor worship, as
is its relationship to water.
*Impact Research Fellow, History and Politics, The University of Stirling, FK9 4LA, Scotland, UK; s.h.mcleod@stir.ac.uk.
Introduction
The rediscovery of runestone U 170 between
Bogesund’s brygga (Bogesund’s jetty) and the small
village of Bogesund in the Stockholm archipelago
(Fig. 1) in late April 2013 was a fortuitous discovery
for a number of reasons. Obviously, the rediscovery
of the stone by Torun Zachrisson and a group of students
from Stockholm University is itself a remarkable
event as U 170 had been missing for about three
hundred years (Källström 2013). Furthermore, the
informative text on the stone can now be assessed
with reference to the location of the stone within the
landscape. The text and the position of the runestone
help to shed some light on local attitudes to past beliefs
and the landscape during the transitional period
when Christianity began to be more widely accepted
in central Sweden.
U 170 was known from an illustration made by
Johan Peringskiöld in the late 17th century (Fig. 2),
but the stone and its exact location were later lost.
The rediscovered base of the stone matches Peringskiöld’s
drawing, with approximately the bottom
quarter of the inscription surviving. The small stones
packed in around the base of U 170 suggest that the
stone remained in its original location (Fig. 3). Even
when the drawing was made, the stone appears to
have had some significant cracks, and it possibly fell
apart not long after the drawing was made (Wessén
and Jansson 1940–1943:258). A comparison of the
drawing and the surviving stone makes it obvious
that what remains today is the section below the two
lowest horizontal cracks in the drawing (Fig. 4). A
limited excavation around U 170 in June 2013 failed
to find any additional fragments with carvings (M.
2014 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 25:1–8
Figure 1. Map of the places named in the text. Map drawn by Aurore McLeod.
2014 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 25
S. McLeod
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Figure 2. U 170 after Peringskiöld’s original illustration (after B 223). After Wessén and Jansson (1940–1943:259).
Figure 3. Deliberately placed small stones at the base of U 170. Photograph by Aurore McLeod.
Journal of the North Atlantic
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2014 No. 25
S. McLeod
Källström, Swedish National Heritage Board, Stockholm,
Sweden, 2013 unpubl. data).
The text of the inscription, as recorded in Peringskiöld’s
drawing, read:
Latin transliteration
: kuni * auk * asa * litu * raisa * sta -- þina * auk *
hualf * iftiR * akn- -un sin an ... ...auþr * i akru *
a- -R * krafin * i * kirikiu*karþi * fastulfR * risti
* runaR * kuin * raisti * stainhal þisa *
Old Norse transcription
Gunni ok Asa letu ræisa stæin þenna ok hvalf æftiR
[Øynd, s]un sinn. Hann [varð d]auðr i Æikrøy(?).
[Hann eR] grafinn i kirkiugarði. FastulfR risti
runaR. [Gunni] ræisti stæinhall þessa. (Wessén and
Jansson 1940–1943:258)
English translation
Gunni and Ása had this stone and the vault raised in
memory of Eyndr, their son. He died in Eikrey(?).
He is buried in the churchyard. Fastulfr carved the
runes. Gunni raised this stone rock-slab. (Samnordisk
runtextdatabas)
Based on Peringskiöld’s illustration, the runestone
is thought to belong to Anne-Sofie Gräslund’s
Pr 3 style group (an Urnes style) and dated to the
mid-11th century, ca. 1045–1075 (Samnordisk runtextdatabas;
Gräslund 2006:126). The runestone is
thus a very early reference to the use of churchyard
burial in central Sweden. It is thought that Æikrøy
refers to Ekerö in Lake Mälaren about 30 km to the
southwest (Wessén and Jansson 1940–1943:261–2).
If Æikrøy does refer to Ekerö, then it may suggest
that churchyard burial was not then available closer
to Bogesund to bury Eyndr. It also demonstrates that
Eyndr’s family had a connection to both places that
warranted the erection of public monuments. Alternatively,
Cecilia Ljung has suggested that although
Eyndr died in Ekerö he may have been buried in the
parish church of Östra Ryd where two other runestones
(U 166 and U 167) raised by the same family
have been recovered (Ljung 2012:2). However, it
should be noted that these stones were not in their
original locations as they were actually incorporated
into the fabric of the church (Wessén and Jansson
1940–1943:251, 253), and it cannot be certain that
churchyard burial was then available in Östra Ryd.
Ljung (2012:5) has also suggested that hvalf monuments
like the one raised in the churchyard for Eyndr
demonstrate a likely connection with southeastern
England during the reign of Knútr and that those
buried in such monuments were either in England
Figure 4. The remains of U 170. Photograph by Aurore McLeod.
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S. McLeod
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or related to people who had been there. Although
translated as “vault”, at the time the term possibly referred
to a stone cist grave with a vault shape (Ljung
2012:1, Wessén and Jansson 1940–1943:262).1 Consequently,
Gunni and Ása erected two visible stone
monuments to their son, and it is possible that the
raised grave slab in the churchyard also contained a
runic inscription, like those at Hov in Östergötland
(Ljung 2012:1–2). The connection with England is
traced through a comparison of stone sculpture in
the Ringerike style in England and Sweden (Ljung
2012:4–5). Considering the stylistic dating of U 170
to ca. 1045–1075, it may be presumed that, if Ljung
is correct, it was one or both of Eyndr’s parents who
had been in England during the reigns of Knútr or his
sons Harald and Hardeknud (r. 1016–1042) rather
than Eyndr himself.
Discussion
It has also been noted that a primary function
of runestones in eastern Sweden was to declare
that the individual or family were Christian, which
is clearly the case with the text of U 170 (Sawyer
2000:148). The burial of Eyndr in a churchyard and
the prominent cross placed in the center of his commemorative
runestone are particularly interesting in
light of his parent’s decision to erect his runestone
at the edge of a pre-Christian burial ground (ca.
550–1050). Although the burial ground can be difficult
to discern today due to the trees and shrubs (Fig.
5; Fornsök, n.d.), burial mounds with stone kerbs are
clearly depicted in Peringskiöld’s drawing (Fig. 2).
By placing the runestone at the edge of the gravefield
Gunni and Ása were combining the Christian
monument with a sacred place containing the remains
of the ancestors. In this way, although the
physical remains of the commemorated were buried
elsewhere, a physical presence at the traditional
burial ground was maintained, providing some form
of physical and emotional link with the past. Considering
that “Place is [and almost certainly was]
an important factor in the creation of memory and
identity” (Leonard 2011:43), then it is likely that the
burial ground at Bogesund contained the remains
of some of Eyndr’s ancestors, that the maintenance
of their memory and the identity of the family unit
were considered important, and that runestone U
170 would help to continue the connection to that
place and its history. Zachrisson (1998:126–159)
has noted that many of the runestones were raised
on magnates farms to which their social identity was
tied, and in the case of U 170 it would seem that
their social identity could also be linked to burial
Figure 5. U 170 and the burial ground behind it. Photograph by Aurore McLeod.
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grounds. Other explicitly Christian (in either their
text or decoration) runestones placed in or near pre-
Christian burial grounds, such as U 60, Sö 106, Sm
5, Sm 29, and Sm 42, may have served a similar purpose
of maintaining a connection between a family
and the burial ground of their ancestors.
U 170 clearly demonstrates that runestones were
part of the cultural landscape of the transitional
period during which Christianity was adopted by a
growing number of people in Sweden, and the placement
of the Christian monuments in or at the edges
of important spaces in the “metaphysically charged”
(recent or concurrently) pre-Christian landscape
was surely significant (Sanmark 2010:176; cf Brink
2001:81–82). The placement of these Christian
runestones in pre-Christian burial grounds provided
a powerful link to past practices and perhaps helped
to connect these places to the new emerging belief
system. Indeed, the placement of the runestones
may have helped to consecrate the burial grounds
(Gräslund 1996:120). Lydia Klos (2009:350) has
taken this notion further and claims that the majority
of runestones were originally placed at grave-fields,
which allowed them to continue as important places
in the early Christian period. However, it should
be noted that the number of stones at grave-fields
has probably been overemphasized by Klos at the
expense of other locations such as roads (Larsson
2010:249–253). Zachrisson (1998:194–200) has
suggested that runestones placed on farm boundaries
offered protection to the farm, both by the person
commemorated on the stone and the Christian ornamentation
and text. Consequently, the placing of
runestones in or on the boundary of a burial ground
may have not only consecrated the cemetery but also
protected it. If monuments are regarded as “physical
safeguards of the actions and beliefs of communities
or individuals” (Leonard 2011:44), then the text and
iconography of U 170 clearly expresses a Christian
belief, but its placement strongly suggests that earlier
burial grounds could co-exist with the new belief
system.
It has been noted that runestones were public
monuments, with many marking farm boundaries
where they crossed the main road into the farm,
often at bridges since boundaries regularly followed
water-courses (Zachrisson 1998:174–194). This
public nature of the monuments has led to the suggestion
that they served as inheritance documents
(Sawyer 2000:47–91). In the case of U 170, it was
also located close to water and a road, both of which
enhanced the likelihood of the runestone being seen
and read. Gunnar Ekholm (1950:138–139) argued
that many runestones ended up adjacent to earlier
burial grounds by default due to the use of communication
networks for the placement of each. However,
I consider the decision to place U 170 near a burial
ground to have been deliberate, and that its location
suggests that the pre-Christian grave-field continued
to be visited even if it was no longer in active use,
presuming that other locals were also starting to
adopt churchyard burial. It is thought that in pre-
Christian Norse belief ancestors were believed to appear
close to or in their graves and that they needed
to be looked after by the living (Sanmark 2010:164–
166). There is also evidence that those in mounds
were remembered on feast days, and that pre-Christian
burial grounds were visited to celebrate and engage
with the ancestors. In chapter 14 of the Saga of
Hákon the Good in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla
(written ca. 1230) about the tenth-century king of
Norway, people at ritual feasts “drank toasts to their
kinsmen, those who had been buried in mounds, and
these were called minni (memorial toasts)” (Finlay
and Faulkes 2011 98). The post-Christian Older
Laws of Gulathing, which were first written down
in the mid-13th century but represent in part earlier
laws, outlawed sacrifices to burial mounds in Chapter
29 (Larson 1935:57). Chapter 23 of these laws
also mention feasts for the dead at burial mounds, to
which priests were directed to attend, demonstrating
that such practices continued into the Christian period
(Larson 1935:52–53). Gräslund (2001:227–231)
has suggested that external cists found at the edges
of some Viking Age burial mounds in Sweden, some
of which contained animal bones and potsherds,
were used for food and drink offerings to the dead.
There is also some evidence that ritual meals or food
deposits occurred at runestones (Ljung and Thedeen
2012). If something similar occurred at U 170, then
it would have allowed a feast or sacrifice to take
place where tradition demanded, near the pre-Christian
burial mounds. Finally, the Later Law of Gulathing
included a direction not to wake up those living
in burial mounds (Sanmark 2010:172), which again
suggests that people continued to visit pre-Christian
grave-fields well into the Christian period. Indeed,
Alexandra Sanmark (2010:171) has characterized
burial mounds as “places for communication between
the dead and the living”, and this communication
apparently continued into the Christian period.
Based in part on their shape, Klos (2009:345) has
suggested that runestones themselves were used for
this purpose, acting as a door allowing communication
with the dead, and also as a threshold to protect
the living against spirits. Regardless of the validity
of Klos’ suggestion, Christian runestones erected at
pre-Christian grave-fields should still be considered
2014 Journal of the North Atlantic No. 25
S. McLeod
6
as public monuments that were expected to be seen
and read (cf. Klos 2009:349–350). Such public display
help to explain the considerable time and effort,
and therefore expense, of preparing, carving, coloring,
and erecting a runestone (Herschend 1999:15).
This notion of runestones as public monuments
intended to be admired and read (Ekholm 1950:144–
145) makes another aspect of the location of U 170
very interesting. U 170 is a timely reminder of the
importance of water in the medieval period: there
is a Viking Age road behind the stone (Fig. 6), but
the inscription faces a field which had been part of
a bay from which the sea could be accessed (Fig.
7). Magnus Källström has suggested that the stone
acted as a landmark for seafarers (2013). Considering
that runestones are thought to have been brightly
painted (Þrainsson 1999), and a comparison of Peringskiöld’s
drawing and the surviving stone suggests
that it would have stood around 1.5 m high, this is
quite likely to be correct. However, a contributing
Figure. 7. Map of the landscape around U
170. Map drawn by Aurore McLeod.
Figure. 6. Evidence for a road behind U 170. Photograph by Aurore McLeod.
Journal of the North Atlantic
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2014 No. 25
S. McLeod
factor in the orientation of the stone is likely to have
been the likelihood of the stone being read, thereby
justifying the cost of the stone and ensuring that people
learnt about Eyndr and his family. This reasoning
suggests that U 170 was just as likely to be read by
people coming from the shore as it was by people
using the road behind the stone. An excavation carried
out around U 170 in June 2013 which revealed
that a small area in front of the stone had been paved
with small round stones strengthens this suggestion.
The excavation was not extensive enough to be conclusive,
but the paved area could be part of a larger
structure, perhaps a path that led from the road to the
seashore (M. Källström, Swedish National Heritage
Board, Stockholm, Sweden, 2013 unpubl. data). If
this was the case, then U 170 combined visibility
from water with visibility from land, and it suggests
that as many people were likely to read it if it faced
the water as if it was turned around to face the road.
The rediscovery of runestone U 170 near Bogesund’s
brygga allows the inscription that contains
crucial information about conversion-period Sweden
to be assessed in conjunction with the location
of the monument within the landscape. The stone is
situated where three features—a road, bay, and burial
ground—meet, thereby maximizing the opportunity
for U 170 to be seen and read. The location also
makes it clear that a desire for some physical and
emotional connection with past practices existed.
Placing the runestone on the edge of a pre-Christian
burial ground allowed a link with the ancestors to be
maintained while following the new Christian burial
custom elsewhere.
Acknowledgments
Chiefly I would like to thank Magnus Källström at
Riksantikvarieämbetet for taking the time to meet with me
and alerting me to the rediscovery of U 170, and for later
providing information about the subsequent excavation at
the site. Torun Zachrisson, who re-discovered the stone
and led the small excavation, was very gracious in allowing
this small contribution to proceed in advance of her
full report. I would also like to thank Alison Leonard, Cecilia
Ljung, and Alexandra Sanmark for providing copies
of their articles. This article has benefitted greatly from the
efforts of the two reviewers and the editor, Laila Kitzler
Åhfeldt. All errors and oversights remain my responsibility.
The Bogesund runestone was visited during a research
trip in May 2013 funded by the Australia Research Council’s
Centre of Excellence for the History of the Emotions,
based at the University of Western Australia. Finally, I
thank my wife and daughter for allowing me to drag them
out to runestones.
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Endnote
1Alternatively, Klos (2009:182) translates hvalf as
Grabplatte (grave-plate), i.e., a slab or stone at the grave
containing an inscription.