Solar Storm

An updated interpretation of the famous Rök runestone suggests Vikings were preoccupied by the threat of a climate calamity. The Rök runestone was completed and upraised in what is now Östergötland, Sweden, around 800 CE, and it was long thought to describe …

Sometime in the early ninth century, an anxious Viking mourning the death of his son began to worry that winter was coming. To cope, he channeled his fears into a wordy essay he then painstakingly chiseled onto the surface of a five-ton slab of granite. This…

Wikimedia CommonsThe Rok runestone’s inscriptions, which contain allusions to catastrophic climate change. The Rok (or Rök) stone, unearthed in the ninth century near Sweden’s Lake Vattern, holds the longest runic inscription in the world. The 700-plus runes…

New Thoughts on Translation of Viking Runestone

New Thoughts on Translation of Viking Runestone

STOCKHOLM – The writing on a famous Viking-era runestone may reflect fears of an approaching climate disaster in ninth century Scandinavia, according to new research by a team of Swedish academics. The Rok stone, located near Lake Vattern in central Sweden, …

Stockholm -- The writing on a famous Viking-era runestone may reflect fears of an approaching climate disaster in 9th century Scandinavia, according to new research by a team of Swedish academics. The Rok stone, located near Lake Vattern in central Sweden,…

A famed Viking relic known as the Rök stone tells of a heart-broken parent's crippling fear that the cold-weather that robbed their child of life may return, experts claim.  Fresh analysis of the mysterious runic inscription claims it speaks of an enduring b…

The Rök stone, raised in the ninth century near the Lake Vättern in south-central Sweden, bears the longest runic inscription in the world with more than 700 runes covering its five sides. It is believed to have been erected as a memorial to a dead son, but …

New Thoughts on Translation of Viking Runestone