Fragmenten från Tomteboda : runsten med bildframställning eller bildstenar med runinskrift

Fragments of a picture stone with a runic inscription in the older futhark were found during excavations in the autumn of 2001. The site was a 1st millennium AD cemetery at Tomteboda in Solna parish, Uppland, Sweden. A few. fragments of at least three picture stones were found in or near the superstructures of graves. The fragments have been analysed in detail with regard to the contents of the carvings, the cutting technique and the raw material. Then follows an account of the find context at the cemetery. Together, the results indicate that all the carvings, decoration as well as inscription, had been made on the same occasion by a single carver. The stone was broken no later than the middle of the Vendel Period. Thus the life of the rune stone was extremely short. Apart from the runic inscription, the layout and subsequent treatment of the rune-inscribed picture stone from Tomteboda seem to be typical for the Lake Malaren area during the mid-ist millennium AD.