Runes around the North Sea and on the Continent AD 150-700; texts & contexts

The original goal of Looijenga was to make an inventory, to describe and to analyse the runic texts from the oldest period 150-700 AD. As research corpus she choose the runic traditions around the North Sea and on the Continent as most studies were already focused on Scandinavia. By comparing different runic traditions she hoped to find answers to questions as: what is the essence of the runic script, who used runes and in which cultural-historical settings?



During her research she noticed names that made no sense from a Northern Germanic pov, made sense from a Continental or West-Germanic linguistic pov, also on objects found in Denmark. 



Based on linguistics and archaeology she points out the strong West-Germanic context for the oldest rune inscriptions, very likely based on an archaic script from Northern Italy. Looijenga proposes the Ubians as possible originators, due to their extended contacts with Romans from the north of the Italian peninsula in the Rhineland.



The use of runes in the first centuries can be attributed to an elite Germanic class with international connections. A lot of objects with runes were found in weapon deposits or in high status graves of women and men. The elite objects in graves were usually found in combination with Roman objects during the first centuries. The Roman objects disappear during the Migration period. After the Migration period the elite aspect is still very much visible in Merovingian contexts. In Frisian and English context the runes were also used on more every day objects. She proposes more research on the Frankish rune tradition.