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Picture stone

The Stora Hammars I stone.

A picture stone, image stone or figure stone is an ornate slab of stone, usually limestone, which was raised in Germanic Iron Age or Viking Age Scandinavia, and in the greatest number on Gotland.[1][2] More than four hundred picture stones are known today.[3] All of the stones were probably erected as memorial stones,[1] but only rarely beside graves.[2] Some of them have been positioned where many people could see them at bridges and on roads.[1]

They mainly differ from runestones by presenting the message in pictures rather than runes. Some picture stones also have runic inscriptions, but they tell little more than to whom the stone was dedicated. Lacking textual explanations, the image stones are consequently difficult to interpret.[2] Similar stones in Scotland are known as Pictish stones.

  1. ^ a b c The article Bildstenar in Nationalencyklopedin (1990).
  2. ^ a b c Hadenius, Stig; Nilsson, Torbjörn; Åselius, Gunnar (1996) Sveriges historia: vad varje svensk bör veta. Bonnier Alba, Borås. ISBN 91-34-51857-6 p. 28.
  3. ^ A presentation at the County Museum of Gotland. Archived 2006-10-10 at the Wayback Machine

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