Författaren till denna uppsats har ett brett allmänt intresse av alla tänkbara relationer mellan hällbilder och runor ur ett vitt spektrum av aspekter såsom kronologiska, kulturella, epokmässiga, geografiska, semiotiska, språkfunktionella och skrifthistoriska. Särskilt intressant vore att kartlägga och analysera, hur hällbilder och runor kan symboliskt uttrycka religiösa, rituella, kosmologiska och livsåskådningsmässiga föreställningar och ideal. Andra viktiga faktorer, som måste beaktas, är kulturkontinuitet och hur forntidens människor såg på sina ännu äldre föregångares kultur, föreställningar och livsföring. Uppsatsen måste dock begränsa sig att främst behandla två specialområden dels lokaler med överlappande förekomster av hällristningar och runor, dels en jämförelse mellan runnamnens semantiska sfärer och symboliseringar av väsentliga delar i livsvärlden hos de mest frekventa skandinaviska hällbildsfigurstyperna. De frågor uppsatsen vill besvara är primärt: 1/ Vilka samlokaliseringar av hällbilder och runor finns det? 2/ Verkar runinskrifterna på dessa samlokaliseringar kommentera eller anspela på hällbilderna och i så fall hur? 3/ Vilka semantiska sfärer representerar runnamnen och vilka komponenter i de dåtida människornas levnadsvärld refererar de till? 4/ Finns det hällbildsfigurer, som rimligen kan sägas symbolisera samma levnadsvärldskomponenter som runorna? För att besvara dessa frågor presenteras: A/ fem samlokaliseringar av hällbilder och runor; B/ tolkningar av samspelet mellan de fem lokalernas hällbilder och runor; C/ en genomgång av de äldre runnamnens betydelser; D/ förslag på hällbildsfigurer, som symboliskt skulle motsvara runnamnen.  En angenäm effekt av denna uppsats vore, om den kunde leda till en rekategorisering av hällbildernas motiv och symboler utifrån runsystemets förutsatta levnadsvärld och kosmologi.. / The author of this thesis has a broad general interest in all imaginable relations between rock art and runes out of a wide spectrum of aspects such as cronological, cultural, epochic, geografic, semiotic, linguistic and the history of writing. It would be specially interesting to describe (map down) and analyse how rock art and runes in a symbolic way can express beliefs and ideals out of a religious, ritual and cosmological  conception of life. Other important considerations are continuity of culture and how ancient people looked at the culture, beliefs, ideas and living of their ancesters. This thesis has to be limited to deal with two areas, firstly lokacations with overlapping occurrence of rock art and runes and secondly a comparison of the semantic sphere of the names of the runes and symbolizations of important parts of life that can be seen in the most frequently occurring Scandinavian types of rock art figures. The thesis primarily wants to answer the following questions: 1) Which common localisations of rock art and runes are there? 2) Do the runes in these colocalization seem to comment or allude to the rock art? If so, in what way? 3) Which semantic spheres do the names of the runes represent and to which components in the life world of the ancient people do they refere? 4) Are there rock art figures who probably can be said to symbolize the same components of life world as the runes? To answer these questions I will present: A) five common lokalisations of rock art and runes. B) interpretations of the interaction of the rock art and runes in these five lokalisations. C) a catalogue of the meanings of the names of the older runes. D) proposals concerning rock art figures which in a symbolic way could correspond the rune names. A pleasant effect of this thesis would be, if it could leed to a recategorization of the motives and symbols of rock art from the provided life world and cosmology of the runes.

The Viking Age rune-carvers and their readers used runes as a semiotic resource to convey and structure the messages on rune-stones. An analysis of the ways in which this resource is used together with other resources gives us a deeper insight into the relationship between writers and readers and into the written culture in which the rune-stones were produced. The present study treats runic carvings as multimodal texts in which different semiotic modes produce meaning by visual and verbal means. The roles played by runes in such texts are studied from three different perspectives. The empirical study in chapter 3 investigates how the verbal messages of the inscriptions interrelate with ornamental compositions. The most important convention found is that runic inscriptions usually start in the lower left part of the ornamental band in which they are inscribed. A second result is that there is a certain correlation between the visual and syntactic structure of runic texts. In chapter 4, Södermanlandic inscriptions employing more than one writing system are investigated. These carvings can be tied to a context of high social ambition in which at least two different, socially stratified discourses are expressed by means of the runes as a visual semiotic mode. Chapter 5 is devoted to non-lexical inscriptions, showing that such carvings are indeed runic texts despite their lack of verbal message. Different types of readers can use runic resources in different ways. Firstly, runes carry meaning independent of any verbal message, giving them significance even to illiterate readers. Secondly, literate readers can appreciate certain conventions of runic composition and, thirdly, one and the same runic text can be part of different discourses and hence be aimed at different kinds of readers. / <p>Disputationen sker på norska och svenska</p>

Föreliggande avhandling syftar till att utveckla läsningen och tolkningen av inskrifterna på de i dagsläget 46 kända vikingatida runblecken. Målet är att ge en så tydlig bild som möjligt av inskriftsgenren vikingatida runbleck. I detta syfte har upprepade fältundersökningar av runblecken genomförts med stereomikroskop. På grundval av på så vis etablerade nya läsningar föreslås nya tolkningar till de mest problematiska ställena i de tidigare tolkade runblecksinskrifterna. Nya tolkningsförslag ges även för runblecksinskrifter som tidigare har ansetts vara olexikaliska. Utöver nya läsningar och tolkningar resulterar denna studie i en kartläggning av relationen mellan runblecksinskrifternas innehåll och form å den enda sidan och runbleckens fyndmiljöer och utseende å den andra. / The aim of this dissertation is to represent as clearly as possible the genre of Viking-Age runic plates by developing readings and interpretations of the inscriptions on the 46 metal plates with runes from the Viking Age known today. Several investigations of the runic plates have been conducted with a stereomicroscope for this purpose. On the basis of the new readings thus established, new interpretations have been proposed for the most problematic sections of previously interpreted inscriptions. New interpretations are also offered for inscriptions on runic plates which have previously been considered non-lexical. As well as providing new readings and interpretations, this study has resulted in clarification of the relationship between the form and content of the inscriptions on the runic plates on the one hand and on their find circumstances and appearance on the other.

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This thesis aims to study the level and scale of literacy as it expanded in Viking towns during the 8th-12th century. In order to get an understanding of this spread, I have worked with two case-studies of Viking towns, as they were founded and prospered during and by the end of the Viking Age in Sweden; the town of Birka located in Björkö Island in Lake Mälaren, and the town of Sigtuna located in the province of Uppland, in central Sweden. Through the study of selected archaeological material, this paper aims to bring together scattered information and shed light on what we know about the level and spread of literacy in Viking society. The purpose of this endeavour, is to question not only the notion of an illiterate pagan society that the Viking Age Scandinavians are considered to have been, but also question both the methodology in which the scholarly archaeological community studies literacy, as well as the way literacy itself is defined in the study of the ancient world. The paper includes a bibliographic and a material-studying approach, as well as a section where digital archaeological research methods are used with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software in order to illustrate the level and scale of literary expansion in Viking Age Sweden. / <p>The proceedings of the Thesis defence were undertaken in the form of a web meeting via Zoom, in accordance to the local restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.</p>

Despite being in a geographical area abundant of rune stones, there are few found in the Stockholm archipelago. This paper explores these stones and why this is by examining the preserved rune stones in two archipelago municipals; Vaxholm and Österåker, their locations and who placed the stones there.