Runic inscription

Lodin let raise the st(one) _

father h(is) … .

God help his spirit.

Thorbjörn cut (the runes).

+ loþin + --(t) + raisa + st… …

+ faþur + s-…

n + guþ hialbi ant hans

þurbiu(r)n hiuk +

Runecarver:

Thorbjörn

Thorbjörn had close connections to Gerlög's family, the Gerlög who had Thorbjörn carve the unique rune slab U 29 in Hilleshög and also U 37 at the ting, the fragment U 24 in the floor of the armory, Hilleshög church and if I guess correctly also helped with the execution of U 37b, the new find from 2015 from Lisselby near the ting.

But Thorbjörn is not a rune carver from Ekerö but probably comes from the northeast, towards Norrtälje.

History

When in 1883 the SHM (State Historical Museum) came to get Ingeborg's runestone (U 15) to give the slab a safer place than leaning against the church wall, they probably also took with them these four unknown fragments that were lying on the cemetery wall.

Once at SHM, neither Ingeborg's runestone nor the four fragments received an inventory number. Ingeborg's runestone received its number as late as 1916, 33 years later.

The four anonymous fragments ended up at the museum in Sigtuna by mistake because they were assumed to belong to another fragment from there.

and the years passed...
but then something happened...

During a restoration of Ekerö Church in 1952, a split fragment of a runestone was found 0.5 meters deep near the eastern wall. The fragment was repaired and placed in Ekerö Church's armory.

But the memory of the fragments on the cemetery wall in the 19th century had been forgotten and it took many more years before all the fragments could be connected, Ekerö church and Sigtuna.

To this day (2025) the fragments are still divided.
The fragments in Sigtuna are kept safely in the museum while the fragments in Ekerö church live a more precarious existence together with the U 15c

The day Ekerö municipality gets its own museum where both runestone fragments and other unique objects can be stored safely and at the same time be public, it is time to bring our fragments home from Sigtuna.

Links

Upplands runinskrifter (U 405) > Page 179
(Only Swedish)

Fornvännen > About the find 1952
(Only Swedish)

Fornvännen > About the find 1954
(Only Swedish)

Runor >  The National Antiquities Board
(Mostly Swedish)
 

ALL RUNESTONES

Ekerö municipality

ADELSÖ >
has 5 known runestones

BIRKA >
has fragments from 9 known runestones

MUNSÖ >
has 3 or 4 known runestones

EKERÖ >
has 11 known runestones

FÄRINGSÖ >
has 27 known runestones

LOVÖ >
has 8 known runestones