Grinding Stone with Runes

This rune-carved whetstone is a fascinating Viking Age find from Boge parish on Gotland where it was located on the edge of a waterway that was navigable by boat during the Viking Age. It was found in the late 1920s by the father of Mrs. Thyra Segerdahl when draining a bog about 1.5 km SSW (south-southwest) of Västers. The whetstone is made of black slate, a material that does not occur naturally on Gotland and it is instead believed to have been quarried in Närke on the mainland as it resembles slate from that area, which indicates a large network of contacts with long distance trade. The whetstone is about 20 cm long in its current condition, but was most likely larger as it is worn down and broken off at both ends.

What is unique about this particular whetstone is the well-preserved inscription on its top. The runes are carved using a sharp object, such as a knife point, and the runic script consists of the letters of the Viking Age 16-type futhark. After the alphabetic letters seven more runes follow: f u R k a n t,  and this final sequence has no known linguistic meaning and its true meaning remains a mystery. Another part of the riddle of the whetstone is why runes were carved on a tool used to sharpen knives, but there are two main theories. It may have been about the magic of the alphabet, where the futhark was considered to possess supernatural powers and functioned as a protection against evil forces. The less exciting alternative, however, is that it is as simple as a pure writing exercise, where the carver practiced their runic knowledge and formed the last characters at random as a continuation of the exercise. The whetstone is dated to the 11th century and constitutes important evidence that the runes were a living part of people's everyday lives during the later Viking Age Gotland. Today the object is part of the collections at Gotland's Museum fornsalen.

Gustavson, H., 2004. Gotlands runinskrifter 3: Boge socken G 275 – G 281. Available at: https://www.raa.se/kulturarv/runor-och-runstenar/digitala-sveriges-runinskrifter/gotlands-runinskrifter-3/ (Accessed 9 December 2025).

Gustavson, H. & Snædal, T. B. (1980). Fornvännen Runfynd 1979. Available at: https://app.raa.se/open/arkivsok/document?uri=https:%2F%2Fpub.raa.se%2Fdokumentation%2F228526ef-36d3-4de0-b7d8-e1cc05d9cf50 (Accessed 9 December 2025). 

Joanna Püss