The ryok stone is located in the south of Sweden, in the municipality of Edeshog in Östergötland. The inscription on it contains 762 runes - this is the longest runic text in the world of all known today.
Most historians and archaeologists agree that the inscription on the stone is an epitaph to a certain deceased warrior named Vemud, created by his father. However, the general meaning of the text is rather vague and leaves a wide scope for interpretation.
A group of Swedish scientists, who analyzed the text of the runestone in detail, argues that the author or customer of the stone was motivated not only by grief for the deceased son. According to the researchers, the text of the epitaph also reflects the fear of an impending climate crisis, namely, a global cooling. An article supporting this hypothesis was published in the Futhark: International Journal of Runic Studies.
Most likely, the text on the stone contains references to the cooling of 535-536. Then the average annual temperature in the Northern Hemisphere dropped sharply, which led to crop failure, widespread hunger, large-scale population migrations and military conflicts. Thus, the population of the Scandinavian Peninsula during this period decreased by about half. The researchers note that the memory of these events has survived and even influenced local mythology.
The text on the Ryoksky stone mentions "those who lost their lives among the Ostrogoths" during the reign of a certain Thjodrik - most likely, this refers to Theodoric the Great, the leader of the Ostrogoths and king of Italy until 526. However, scholars believe that the text refers not only to the ordinary battles that took place at that time. We can talk about another type of battle: "the conflict between light and darkness, warm and cold, life and death" - this is how researchers characterize the subject of the text.
The authors of the article believe that the content of the text could be affected by various ominous events that occurred during the life of the author of the text. “A powerful solar storm tinted the sky with harsh shades of red, crops suffered from an extremely cold summer, and later there was a solar eclipse just after sunrise,” says archeology professor Bo Graslund. “Even one of these events would have been enough to cause fear of the new Fimbulwinter (the apocalyptic three-year winter preceding the end of the world in German-Scandinavian mythology. - Ed.)”.
Author: EVGENY PRAVDIN
