#sodermanland

The word Grikkland (Greece) appears on these runestones in one of three different forms: Grikk(j)ar (Greeks), grikkfari (traveler to Greece) and Grikkhafnir (Greek harbors).

Scandinavians had served as mercenaries in the Roman army many centuries before the Viking Age, but during the time when the stones were made, there were more contacts between Scandinavia and Byzantium than at any other time. Swedish Viking ships were common on the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea, the Sea of Marmara and on the wider Mediterranean Sea. Greece was home to the Varangian Guard, the elite bodyguard of the Byzantine Emperor, and until the Komnenos dynasty in the late 11th century, most members of the Varangian Guard were Swedes.

The stones vary in size and material. Most of them are adorned with various runestone forms that were in use during the 11th century, especially the Ringerike and Urnes styles. The Viking Age coincided with the Christianization of Scandinavia, and on many runestones the inscriptions have traces of Christianity, while some runestones are explicitly pagan. The runestone tradition probably died out before 1100, and at the latest by 1125.

Since the first discoveries by Johannes Bureus in the late 16th century, these runestones have been frequently identified by scholars, with many stones discovered during a national search for historic monuments in the late 17th century. Several stones were documented by Richard Dybeck in the 19th century. The latest stone to be found was in Nolinge, near Stockholm, in 1952.

Pictured above are runestones U 136, Sö 165, U 518 and U 792.