Bow brooch from Nordendorf

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The front side of the bow brooch from Nordendorf I
Bow brooch Nordendorf II

The Nordendorf bow brooch is the general name of two Germanic garment clasps from the middle to the second half of the 6th century. They were found in 1843 (Nordendorf I) and 1844 (Nordendorf II) near Nordendorf in Bavaria . An Alemannic background is suspected for the origin of the fibulae .

The runic inscription on the back of the fibula is the earliest known mention of the Germanic deities Wodan and Donar .

Nordendorf I

Finding and describing

The fibula probably comes from a woman's grave, which was part of a row of 448 burials. Details were not or only insufficiently documented during the excavations. The graves suggest Franconian, Alemannic and Lombard settlements. The settlement near the burial ground gained its prosperity from its immediate location on the Via Claudia Augusta , the most important road to Italy in antiquity.

Inscription and interpretation

Runic inscription

The clockwise, two-line inscription in the older Futhark is affixed to the back of the headstock and is clearly legible as:

  1. ᛚᛟᚷᚨᚦᛟᚱᛖ ᚹᛟᛞᚨᚾ ᚹᛁᚷᛁᚦᛟᚾᚨᚱ
    logaþore wodan wigiþonar
  2. ᚨᚹᚨ ᛚᛖᚢᛒᚹᛁᚾᛁ
    awa (l) eubwini
Row A

The first line has provided most of the discussion since the primer was discovered. The words wodan and wigiþonar were and are unanimously regarded as the god names of Wodan and Donar . Donar is either a consecration-Donar (with wigi - to germ *. Wīgian 'consecrate') or as a battle-Donar (with wigi -. To germ * Wigan 'fight') specific. A third god - logaþore , whom some researchers identify as the Nordic Loðurr or Loki , was added to this. The triple naming of gods ( triad ) occurs very frequently in Germanic paganism as well as in other cultures.

Klaus Düwel interprets logaþore as “malicious” or “magician”. This interpretation resulted from the discovery of two old English glosses in which the Latin words cacomicanos and marsius with logþer and logeþer had been translated. The meaning of the inscription would change from the pagan gods triad to the Christian statement "magicians (or: lying) [are] Wodan and consecration-donar".

Arguments against this interpretation are also given by Edgar C. Polomé , among others :

  • linguistically, the -e in logaþore is unusual
  • a triad of gods fits better stylistically
  • historically the middle of the 6th century is too early for a Christian runic inscription
  • expected or missing Christian symbolism
  • mythologically, Odin can be called a magician, but not Thor
  • speaks the rod-end long line through the nickname ( "pomp name") Donars against a Abschwörungsformel

The experts who interpret logaore as Loki include Dieter Geuenich , Willy Krogmann , Heinz Klingenberg and Stephan Opitz.

English glosses translate Latin marsius / marsi as wyrmgalera (snake magician ), which in turn would be a reference to Loki and the divine triad. Even a confusion of Marsius with the god Mars and thus Tyr would be possible. Of all gods, Tyr would fit best in a triad of gods.

Line B

The second line of the primer is generally believed to be the personal names Awa ( diminutive of Awila) and Leubwini (dear friend). The L-rune at the beginning of the word is accepted because it is as good as worn off.

Nordendorf II

Depiction of the inscription from the end of the 19th century in the reading with the runes that are now considered unsafe as b irl n ioel k (G. Stephens: Handbook of the Old-Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England. 1884)

Another fire-gilded silver fibula with a runic inscription was found in the same burial ground in 1844. The inscription is laid out in one line and was attached to the back of the semicircular head plate.

( ᛒ / ᚨ ) ᛁᚱᛚ (?) ᛁᛟᛖᛚ (?)
( B / a ) irl (?) Ioel (?)

A clear interpretation of the inscription is due to the special characters / runes for the corpus of the south Germanic rune inscriptions (positions 5, 10), as well as the reading of rune No. 1 as b or a rune, not yet given. Ute Schwab interpreted the unused vowel series ioe, which is unusual for Germanic , as a possible rendering of syncretical , magical verbalizations of the Hebrew theonym Jehova / Jahwe, based on the Greek form Ιαώ (and variants) from the so-called late antique "Zauberpapyri".

literature

  • Klaus Düwel : Runic lore. 4th, revised and updated edition, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-476-14072-2
  • Wolfgang Krause , Herbert Jankuhn : The runic inscriptions in the older Futhark. (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philosophical-Historical Class; Volume 3, No. 65.1 (text), No. 65.2 (tables)). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1966.
  • Tineke Looijenga: Runes around the North Sea and on the Continent AD 150-700 . Pp. 144-145. ( Full version )
  • Robert Nedoma : Personal names in the South Germanic runic inscriptions. Studies on old Germanic onomastics I, 1, 1. (= Indo-European library. 3rd row: Investigations ). Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2002, ISBN 978-3-8253-1646-4 .
  • Ute Schwab : Runes from the Merovingian period as a source for the survival of Christian and non-Christian script magic in late antiquity? In: Klaus Düwel, Sean Nowak (ed.): Runic inscriptions as sources of interdisciplinary research. (= Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde - supplementary volumes, 15). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1998, ISBN 3-11-015455-2 , pp. 376-433.
  • Marcus Trier, Klaus Düwel:  Nordendorf. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 21, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2002, ISBN 3-11-017272-0 , pp. 273-277.
  • Norbert Wagner : To the runic inscriptions from Pforzen and Nordendorf. In: Historische Sprachforschung 108 (1995), pp. 104–112.
  • Michelle Waldispühl: Writing practices and knowledge of writing in South Germanic runic inscriptions. On the functionality of epigraphic use of writing. Chronos Verlag, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-0340-1026-9 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Archaeological dating for Nordendorf 1 according to Klaus Düwel: Runenkunde. 4th, revised and updated edition, Stuttgart 2008, p. 63; the rune project of the University of Kiel gives for Nordendorf I 540-590 and for Nordendorf II the middle / second half of the 6th century as archaeological dates.
  2. ↑ Lisbeth Bredholt Christensen, Olav Hammer, David Warburton: The Handbook of Religions in Ancient Europe . Routledge, 2014, ISBN 978-1-317-54453-1 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed April 20, 2019]).
  3. ↑ Düwel, Klaus: Runenkunde. 4th, revised and updated edition, Stuttgart 2008, pp. 63–64
  4. ^ Edgar C. Polomé: Essays on Germanic Religion. (= Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series , Volume 6). Washington / DC 1989, ISBN 0-941694-34-8 , pp. 140 ff.
  5. ↑ Dieter Geuenich: The history of the Alemanni . 2nd Edition. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-17-018227-7 , pp. 112 .
  6. ↑ Jens Bahr: Word material of the inscriptions according to word classes. Accessed December 1, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Jens Bahr: Word material of the inscriptions according to word classes. Accessed December 1, 2018 .
  8. ^ Tineke Looijenga: Runes around the North Sea and on the Continent AD 150-700. P. 145.