Caistor-by-Norwich astragalus
A roe-deer ankle bone carrying one word, from a cremation urn in Norfolk. It is the oldest runic object found in England, and it is not written in the English alphabet, which is the whole point of it.
At a glance
- Alphabet
- Elder Futhark
- Date
- 5th century
- Found at
- Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk, England
- Signature
- None given here. English, Frisian and Continental material is catalogued outside the Rundata tradition altogether; elsewhere a signature is left off only where we could not verify one. Either way the object is cited by name and findspot.
The text
Transliteration in the conventional runological form. Translations on this site are our own and deliberately literal.
raïhan
roe deer
Discovery
Recovered in 1937 from a cremation urn in the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Caistor St Edmund, just outside Norwich. The urn held a set of astragali (sheep and roe-deer ankle bones of the kind used as gaming pieces), and only this one carries runes.
Why it matters
It dates the arrival of runic writing in England, and it does so in the older alphabet: the word is cut in Elder Futhark, without any of the Anglo-Frisian innovations that turn a futhark into a futhorc. It is also one of the very few places outside a complete futhark row where the ï-rune is securely attested, which matters because that rune is otherwise known almost only from the rows themselves.
Common misconceptions
Claims about this object that circulate widely and do not hold up.
Oldest runic find in England is not the same as oldest English runic find, and the gap between those two things is what this object is for. Its runes are the inherited 24, so what it dates is when runic writing reached England, not when the futhorc existed. The earliest inscription that can be argued to use the Anglo-Frisian innovations is the Undley bracteate.
The cemetery has produced material with Scandinavian connections, and the astragalus has accordingly been read as an import carried over in the earliest phase of the settlement rather than as something inscribed in Norfolk. That is a suggestion rather than a finding, and one word cannot settle it.
Runes attested here (1)
Every dictionary entry that cites this object, with the reason it gives.
- Īhwaz / *eihwazElder
raïhan, "roe deer", cut on a roe-deer ankle bone: one of the very few places this rune is securely attested inside an actual word rather than in a futhark row.
Sources
Full references on the sources page.