61 ff.) and finally the “Germanic Wars under Augustus” (cf. 27 ff.), then the start of the Gallic War with the battle between Caesar and the Suebi under Ariovistus (cf. This expansion led, among other things, to the collision of the Romans with another expansion from the north, namely that of the Germanic tribes: First the track of the Cimbri and Teutones (cf. ibid.) and subsequently to the “rise of Rome as an imperial power ”( cf. This relates to the migration and expansion of the Celtic tribes (cf. during the pre-Roman and Roman Iron Age in Northern Europe.Īccording to Barry Cunliffe, this was “a time of immense social upheaval and readjustment.” (cf. Roughly, this results in a time frame of approximately 700 years, i.e. 38), and in the case of the Latin thesis at the time of intensive Germano-Roman contact, so not prior to the 1st century BC and probably only in the course of the first and early second centuries AD. 374), in the case of the North Etruscan theory at the “end of the second century BC” (cf. Whilst the location of the place of origin and the rough ethno-linguistic classification of the writers of the first runes are relatively easy to determine, depending on the preferred theory, another point in time for the creation of the runes must be assumed: In the case of Theo Vennemann’s Phoenician thesis, the earliest runes would’ve already been created “between about 525 and 201 BC.” (cf. Later on, after the separation of the Proto-language into several daughter-languages or dialects, distinguishable inscriptions in East and South/West Germanic languages were found as well (cf. The ethnicity of the people which employed the runes seems rather obvious as well, since the inscriptions in the Elder Futhark were primarily written in a language termed “Nordic-West Germanic Language Unit” or “Early Runic” and the speakers were therefore Germanic or at least able to speak this Proto-Germanic dialect. Historical Context in Ancient Germania and ScandinaviaĪs in regards to the place of origin of the runes it is generally assumed today that they originated somewhere in or around the Danish Isles, as this is where the oldest inscriptions have been found (cf. Then the theses described above and their arguments are put forward and criticized individually, and finally the current state of research is summarized and an outlook on future research opportunities is given to solve the problem of the origin of the runes.Īs a basis for this work, mainly scientific introductory books on runology, as well as essays in runological, historical and scriptural journals and specialist books were used. To begin with, I will briefly introduce the reader to the relevant historical context and mark out the time frame in which the Elder Futhark could have been created, whereupon I present an overview of the runes themselves. This particular theory is not necessarily more plausible than the Greek one, and it’s struggling with some of the same problems, such as centuries of virtually no archaeological proof between the proposed time of origin and actual archaeological finds, but it is able to answer many of the questions that the previously put forward theories could not. ibid.), I would instead like to include the Phoenician hypothesis, which has mainly been represented by Theo Vennemann in the recent past. Since the Greek thesis has lost many of its supporters to the Latin and North Etruscan variants (cf. Traditionally, a comparison has often been made between the Latin, North Etruscan and Greek thesis, mostly in this order from the most probable to the most improbable (cf. This article is to deal specifically with the origin of its oldest form, the so-called Elder Futhark, and to present, compare and criticize the arguments of two prominent and one rather controversial, yet intriguing, theory in regards to its origin in detail. The Runes are the oldest form of writing in Northern Europe (cf. Picture of the Icelandic Codex Regius, one of the “original” copies of the Poetic Edda. In contemporary historical research, however, no consensus in regards to their actual origin has been able to be established yet (cf. This shows that the people writing the runes themselves believed in a “divine origin” (ibid., p. Such was the creation of the runes, the mythical signs of the Vikings, according to their very own legends, documented in 13th century Iceland in form of the Elder or Poetic Edda, as Klaus Duewel and many others have noted before (cf. Mythological Beginnings in the Viking Age I know that I hung on that windy tree, Note: All translations from German in this text, including quotes, are the authors. Historical Context in Ancient Germania and Scandinavia.Mythological Beginnings in the Viking Age.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |