Where Did The Runes Come From? The Origins Of The Elder Futhark

The runes of the Germanic-speaking peoples are perhaps one of the most enigmatic forms of writing in the history of Europe. This might partially be attributed to the fact that the origins of the runes still seem uncertain. At the very least, no overarching consensus has been reached in the academic community yet. In this video, I aim to investigate the origins of the oldest runic alphabet, the so-called Ilverfuthark, by comparing three theories explaining their origins. The Latin hypothesis, postulating that the runes were inspired by the Latin script used throughout the Roman Empire. The North Hadruscan hypothesis, proponents of which assume that the runes can be traced back to alphabets used in Northern Italy before the adoption of the Latin script there. And the Phoenician hypothesis, according to which the runes were inspired by the Phoenician script of the Carthaginians of North Africa. But first up, what are runes? Runes are the earliest form of writing found in Northern and many parts of Central Europe. The earliest finds displaying undoubtedly runic inscriptions are found in Southern Scandinavia and Jutland from the second half of the 2nd century AD onwards. It is thus often assumed that they originated there and gradually spread throughout much of the Germanic-speaking world. The runes remain most often associated with Scandinavia, although runic inscriptions could also be found in higher concentrations in Anglo-Saxon England and in Germany, particularly in the southwest. Scattered runic finds have also been found in other parts of Europe, but are still usually associated with Germanic-speaking groups, which in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages could be found in pretty much every part of Europe. In contrast to Latin letters, runes don't only represent sounds, but also words. Thus, the first rune of the futherk doesn't only represent the f-sound, but also the word fihu, meaning cattle. This is similar to the Greek alphabet, where letters also represent sounds and words, as in the vowel a being represented by the letter alpha. But in contrast to Greek, the words associated with those letters aren't just their names, but real-world concepts. Contrary to popular belief, the runes were probably not necessarily strictly associated with magic or religious practices, although some early runic inscriptions bear the names of gods. A passage in Tacitus Germania, an ethnographic text on the ancient Germanic peoples from the late 1st century AD, mentions that the Germanic tribes carved certain signs into small pieces of wood, which they then cast to discern the future, although if the signs were early runes is uncertain, as no runic finds from this period are known, with one possible exception. This exception is an inscription found on a fibula in Meldal, northern Germany, dated to the first half of the 1st century AD, and it might show a proto-runic inscription. Scholars haven't been able to decide whether the used signs are indeed early runes or just badly written Latin characters, however. If they did turn out to be runes, though, that would push the beginnings of runic writing back a full century, and it would also suggest that the runes originated further south than previously thought. Of course, it is also possible that the earliest runes were exclusively or mostly carved into or written on perishable materials, which didn't stand the test of time. When the runes exactly originated is thus hard to tell and also depends on which other alphabet is thought to have inspired them, which brings us to the question at hand. Where did the runes come from? It is generally assumed that the runes were inspired by a Mediterranean script, although the jury is still out on which one exactly. In the past, a Greek origin of the runes had been proposed, but this theory has since fallen out of favour, mainly because of a lack of discernible contact between the Greek-speaking world and Germanic northern Europe throughout antiquity. Both Caesar and Tacitus mention, however, that some Celtic groups in central Europe used the Greek script, so a transmission via these tribes seems at least possible, and at least one recent paper from the year 2014, by a scholar named Edmund Fairfax, actually argues in favour of such a transmission. But Fairfax seems to be the only modern scholar in favour of this theory, which is in stark contrast to the hypothesis of a Roman origin of the runes. Roman and Germanic tribes had been in close contact with each other since Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul, and Germanic warriors had subsequently served in the Roman military, bringing many aspects of Roman civilisation into central and northern Europe in the process. In this context, it doesn't seem too unlikely that some of those warriors also picked up the Latin script and adapted it to better suit their native tongue. The obvious similarities of the Latin script with the early runes also point to a Latin influence, particularly when it comes to the signs corresponding to the consonants F, B, H, T and S, represented in English by the corresponding Latin letters, as well as similarities to the vowel E, in English most often represented by the letter E, although sometimes also by the letter I. On the other hand, the forms of other runes cannot be explained by a Latin origin, such as the Dargas rune, representing the consonant D. If Latin was indeed the main inspiration behind the runes, it does seem odd that the earliest runic inscriptions are found in southern Scandinavia and Jutland, far from the direct contact zone between Germanic-speaking tribes and the Romans. The Swedish archaeologist Gerd Rausing postulated that Rome's relationship with the tribes at the border was marked by conflict, whereas tribes from beyond the conflict zone were more likely to serve in the army as auxiliaries and thus cultivated more amicable relations with Rome. This contrasts with the views of the British historian John F. Drinkwater, who has pointed out that the tribes at the border generally seemed to have been in much more intense contact with the Roman Empire and were more likely to adopt aspects of Roman culture than tribes from further beyond were. Many of those tribes are also reported to have served in the Roman army, as was the case with the Batavians or the Ube or the Makomani, in contrast with the inhabitants of Scandinavia, which are neither mentioned to have served in the sources, nor are there archaeological clues that point in that direction. Drinkwater actually argues in favour of tribes from further away from the border being mostly responsible for hostile actions directed against the Roman Empire, in stark contrast to Rausing's statements. Given this discrepancy, how exactly the runes ended up so far in the north if they were indeed inspired by the Latin script remains a mystery. Luckily for us, there are other theories as to the origins of the runes which provide potential solutions to these problems, although they come with their own sets of issues which we will get to in a bit. The first of these theories we will be taking a look at is the so-called North Etruscan hypothesis. The Etruscans were an early Italian civilisation that were the pre-eminent power of northern and central Italy before the rise of the Roman Republic. They developed their own script based on the Greek alphabet which was in turn copied by neighbouring peoples under their influence, such as the Veneti and the Reti of northern Italy, with minor alterations given rise to a number of so-called North Etruscan alphabets. Etruscan trade networks stretched far into central Europe around the middle of the first millennium BC, so it is possible that they made contact with early speakers of Germanic languages, which may have even led to the transmission of writing from Italy to the north. Another possibility is that the tribe of the Kimbri, who probably originated on the Jutland peninsula of modern Denmark and migrated through much of western Europe at the end of the 2nd century BC, including northern Italy, came into contact with North Etruscan scripts on those migrations. Although Roman sources say that the Kimbri were destroyed in the confrontations with the Romans, they are attested at Jutland in the 1st century AD, so some of them might have survived and returned to their homeland, bringing with them the script that they had first encountered in Italy. In this context of great interest is that the earliest known Germanic word in recorded history has been found inscribed in a North Etruscan script on the so-called Negau Helmet B, all but providing proof that Germanic-speaking populations had in fact come into contact with North Etruscan scripts, that at least one individual, according to the inscription A Certain Haragust, could write in this script. Another helmet found at Negau, fittingly called Negau A, bears the Latin inscription Ke Erulli, which has been interpreted as Kenturia Erulli, and probably refers to the Erulli, a Germanic tribe attested to have inhabited the Danish Isles in the 2nd century AD. Even though the written sources don't mention this tribe specifically until much later, the Erulli might have been present in Denmark already by the late 2nd century BC, and part of them could have joined the Kimbri on their trek south and ended up serving in the Roman army after the defeat against the Romans. There, they might have picked up a version of the North Etruscan script which they brought home with them after they had served their time in the army. One issue with this theory is that the exact age of the helmets and their inscriptions is unclear, but several scholars think it at least possible that they can be dated to the late 2nd century BC, when the Kimbri and the other tribes accompanying them were migrating through Europe. Also in favour of a North Etruscan origin of the runes are general similarities between the signs, particularly in case of a so-called Venetian variant. Interestingly, some Latin letters also appear in these alphabets from 180 BC onwards, which could explain why some runes look more like North Etruscan letters and others more like Latin ones. The biggest problem of the North Etruscan hypothesis is that North Etruscan alphabets mostly fell out of use by the early 1st century BC and were largely replaced by the Latin alphabet. That means that between the latest use of North Etruscan alphabets and the earliest runes lies a substantial gap of over two centuries. If the runes had been inspired by one of these writing systems, we would have expected to encounter them much earlier, but that is not the case. That being said, in the 1950s North Etruscan inscriptions have been found in Austria and have been dated to the early decades of the 1st century AD, so apparently someone still wrote in North Etruscan scripts at that time. So, if this script survived for a century without showing up in the archaeological or historical record, it may have survived another century until the appearance of the first runic inscriptions. During that time it may have been mainly written on perishable materials such as wood, wax and papyrus, but this is obviously impossible to prove. For obvious reasons, the so-called Phoenician hypothesis, the assumption that the runes were inspired by the letters of the ancient Carthaginians, struggles with similar issues, but far more severely. This hypothesis was mainly championed by the German linguist Theo Veneman, who not only postulated that the runes were inspired by the Carthaginians, but that the Proto-Germanic language itself and thus all languages were formed under Carthaginian influence. The main argument in favour of Veneman's theory is the fact that the runes, as mentioned previously, do not only represent sounds, but also concepts, which the Punic alphabet also does. And strikingly, the first letter of the Punic writing system is called Aleph, meaning cow, very similar to the first letter of the Futhark, which, as mentioned previously, stands for fihu, cattle. He also postulates this for such as the Urus rune. Urus means arocs, which were a massive species of cattle that roamed the forests of Europe up until the 17th century. Veneman claims that this rune is derived from the Punic letter Gimel, representing the consonant G and meaning camel. He states that due to the absence of camels in ancient Germania, the ancient Germans took the next best thing, that being the arocs. Veneman believes that the Punic alphabet was brought to Germania at some between the expedition of the Carthaginian general Himilco, who set out to explore the Atlantic North roughly around 525 BC to search for new trade routes, and the end of the Second Punic War, after which Carthage lost much of its territory. Veneman postulates that Himilco or some of his successors founded trade colonies in Germania, which they maintained for centuries and only lost due to their confrontation with Rome, leaving Carthaginian merchants stranded in the far north. There, they gradually blended into the local population, in the process not only giving rise to the runes, but also leading to the sound changes known as Grimm's Law that set Germanic apart from the other Indo-European languages. Whilst the Punic origin of the runes could account for their conceptual meaning and suggest a transmission route via sea, which aligns with their first appearance in the vicinity of modern Denmark, the chronological gap remains problematic. Over 300 years would have elapsed between the arrival of the Carthaginians in Northern Europe and the earliest documented appearance of the runic script. Furthermore, there is no archaeological or historical evidence to support Veneman's claims. For these reasons, Veneman's theory hasn't found much support in the scholarly community, although some experts think it possible that a Semitic alphabet shaped at least some of the signs of the Elder Futhark. For example, the Swedish scholar John Trong postulated in 2003 that some Semitic letters might have been inspired by Nabataean auxiliaries which were stationed at the Roman border in the 2nd century AD. Due to unfavourable conditions at the border, they were forced to conduct raids into Germania and eventually decided to settle amongst the Germanic tribes, bringing with them their script as well as the Latin letters which formed the basis of the runes. Whilst intriguing, I personally find the Phoenician thesis the most difficult to believe. Whilst a meeting between Carthaginian explorers and proto-Germanic populations is possible, Veneman's theory of a lasting Punic presence in Germania has been widely rejected, which also applies to a potential Semitic impact on the proto-Germanic language. Thus, a transmission of Semitic letters also seems highly unlikely, at least by the Carthaginians. Trong's hypothesis seems more plausible, but I personally still lean more towards a North Etruscan or Latin origin of the runes, why combination of the two, which seems particularly likely given that the North Etruscan alphabets themselves had also picked up some Latin letters before falling mostly out of use towards the end of the 2nd century BC. The finds of inscriptions in a North Etruscan alphabet dated to the 1st century AD show that the archaeological and historical record is patchy and that it is possible that these scripts remained in use much longer than previously thought. Perhaps some of the participants in the migration of the Kimberley did pick up the script and kept it alive all those years, but of course this is also difficult to prove. What are your thoughts on the origins of the runes? Let me know in the comments below. Hopefully more finds in the future will shed more light on this issue. In the meantime, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to watch this video. If you liked it, consider liking and subscribing as it would help the channel immensely. Thanks again for your support and I'm looking forward to seeing you in the next one.