Peasants & Prayers

It all began in 1821 with the finding of the Kingittorsuaq stone, the first evidence of runic writing in Norse Greenland. For the first time, researchers were faced with the language spoken by the Norse inhabitants of medieval Greenland. In the following almost 200 years, over 160 additional finds of runic and Roman letter artefacts were retrieved from the soils of Greenland. The Norse settlement was founded in the late 10th century and given up in the mid-15th century. The inscriptions had been carved on gravestones, crosses, amulets and on items of daily use. Because of the exceptional preservation conditions, the Greenlandic runic material provides us with the opportunity to study the medieval tradition of writing in a rural society at close range. In many other corners of the world, we do not have this opportunity, and this is why the Greenlandic inscriptions are so important; not only do they contribute to the history of Norse settlement in Greenland, they also contribute to our