Arlanda Airport Runestone
Posted by: 
DougK
N 59° 38.700 E 017° 55.650
33V E 665000 N 6615515
This Runestone is on display at the Arlanda Airport, just as you leave the boarding area and enter the terminal area.
Waymark Code: WMHKRK
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Date Posted: 07/21/2013
Views: 34
The descriptive plaque next to the runestone reads:
ARLANDA (Maby), Husby-Ärlinghundra parish, Uppland
RUNE STONE with an inscription from the eleventh century.
Gurnar and Björn and Thorgrim set up this stone
in memory of Thorsten, their brother. He died in the east
with Ingvar. And made (this bridge?)
This stone was found in April, 1990, during construction work for the new
motorway leading to Arlanda.
Apparently, the stone was raised near the west end of the bridge
mentioned in the inscription. The building of bridges, which is often
mentioned in runic inscriptions, was a way to commemorate dead
kinsfolk and was probably believed to help their souls through purgatory.
The bridge probably consisted of a causeway over marshy ground with a
short wooden bridge to let the water through.
Ingvar's expedition is mentioned on nearly 30 rune stones, most of
them found in the Mälar region. The expedition must have been one of
the great events in Sweden in the first half of the 11th century and no
doubt it attracted many participants.
The inscription clearly shows that this bold Viking venture came to a
disastrous end. All the members of the expedition dies "south in Serkland"
or "in the east with Ingvar". No inscriptions refer to a man who
returned from those far-off lands. By Serkland the Norsemen meant the
lands of the Abbasid caliphate, whose capital in the VIking Age was
Baghdad.
THE CENTRAL BOARD OF NATIONAL ANTIQUITIES