Page 80 - All About History - Issue 56-17

Graffiti through the Ages

In the Footsteps of Vikings

Maeshowe Chambered Cairn on Orkney served as the personal guard of the Byzantine guard decided this famous landmark needed some
is a Neolithic burial chamber that was erected emperors because they were valued for their ferocity extra decoration. Both of the lion’s flanks bear
almost 5,000 years ago. The Orkneyinga Saga in combat and devout loyalty to their employer. runes carved in a lindworm, or dragon, pattern.
tells of how Viking settlers broke into the They also brought their tendency to vandalise the Increasingly weathered over the centuries, the
prehistoric cairn in search of treasure 1,000 years property of others as well. In the basilica of Hagia inscriptions are difficult to make out, but translations
ago and left a trove of runic inscriptions behind Sophia in Constantinople there are two short runic have been made:
them that can still be seen today. Some follow the graffiti, almost indecipherably worn away, but in “They cut him down in the midst of his forces.
pattern of most graffiti — “Ottarfila carved these Athens a longer inscription was set down. But in the harbour the men cut runes by the sea in
runes” — while others make reference to the treasure At the city’s port of Piraeus, a white marble memory of Horsi, a good warrior. The Swedes set this
mentioned in the saga. lion statue was set up in the 1st century CE. So on the lion. He went his way with good counsel, gold
The Scottish cairn wasn’t an isolated incident. famous was this lion that the whole port came to he won in his travels. The warriors cut runes, hewed
From the 10th to the 14th centuries, Norse soldiers be known as Porto Leone. At some point, a Norse them in an ornamental scroll…”

A grafitto of a Viking longboat
on a whetstone from either the
9th or 10th century

Some of the Norse runes inside Bronze Age rock carvings at
Maeshowe Chambered Cairn Tanum in Sweden

“Was such behaviour

winked at by the

authorities?”

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