The runic alphabets
The oldest widely attested runic alphabet: a flexible writing system used on stone, metal, bone, weapons, jewellery, and personal objects long before the Viking Age.
The earliest secure runic inscriptions belong to the first centuries AD. Elder Futhark was shared across several Germanic-speaking communities, including in Scandinavia and on the European continent. Its inscriptions preserve early Germanic names and words and, in Scandinavia, the language stage scholars call Proto-Norse.
The row is conventionally divided into three groups of eight. Its modern name comes from the sounds of its first six signs: f, u, þ, a, r, k. The National Museum of Denmark describes this Iron Age row as a 24-sign system used on weapons, jewellery, and other objects, often for names or maker inscriptions.
The Kylver Stone from Gotland, made in the fifth century, preserves the earliest known near-complete sequence of the 24-rune row. It was found as a stone slab in a grave and is now held by Sweden’s Historical Museum. It is especially valuable because it shows the alphabet as a deliberate ordered sequence.
During the seventh and eighth centuries, Scandinavian rune forms and sound values changed. By around AD 800, the 24-sign row had given way in the Nordic world to the 16-sign Younger Futhark. In England and Frisia, a different development expanded the row into the Anglo-Frisian futhorc.
Research trail
Iron Age runes and the 24-sign row
Kylver Stone and the older rune row
Runology overview by Professor Kristel Zilmer
Orientation, terminology, and bibliography
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