A new Scandinavian runic inscription from Hagia Sophia in Constantinople
While examining the walls of Hagia Sophia in Istnbul in search of Cyrillic
inscriptions in 2009 Russian historians Jurij A. Artamonov and Alexej A.
Gippius discovered an inscription that was later identifi ed as made with
Scandinavian runes. It is scratched on a sill of a window immured and
painted over in grisaille technique. The window is located on the 2nd fl oor
in the eastern wall of the northern gallery. The windowsill is covered with
many Cyrillic (mostly of the second half of the twelfth to the mid-thirteenth
century) and Greek graffi ti. The inscription runs 26,8 cm long with the height
of runes varying from 3,0 to 4,8 cm. Most of the runes are readable but for
three runes in two places which reading is uncertain. The inscription reads
a͡ rinba͡ rþr r͡ ast runa͡ r þasi Arinbárðr rеist rúnar þási «Arinbard carved these
runes».
The inscription is cut very accurately with approximately equal spaces
between runes and specifi c paleographic characteristics: all runes r and a͡ r have
sharp tops, the loops of runes b, þ, and r are rounded but not wide. Arinbard
seems to be experienced in writing runes and possessed a handwriting of his
own. The peculiar features of the inscription are a multiple and stable usage
of bind-rune a͡ r whenever a combinations of a and r was needed (four times)
and the absence of R-rune. Though neither peculiarities provide fi rm grounds
for dating the inscription, it was produced most probably in the second half
of the eleventh or in the twelfth century.
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