Household ecology, gender and funerary rites in the 4th or 5th century AD

The evidence of the Tune inscription

Abstract

The Tune runestone is a funerary memorial, first recorded in 1627, at which date it had been incorporated into the stone wall enclosing the churchyard of the parish of Tune, near Sarpsborg in .stfold. Its earlier history has to be reconstructed, and while there is evidence that provides clues to its earliest contexts, the date at which the inscription was made is difficult to pin down. Linguistic features of the inscription and the way it has been laid out on the stone are characteristic of very early runestones from Norway, but even so it could be either of the Late Roman Iron Age or the early Migration Period. In any case, the inscription clearly documents important facets of the social and economic circumstances in which it was made. Those show how valuable it will be when scholarship and science advance to the point at which they can locate the memorial stone in a more precise historical context.