Introduction

In the late eleventh century AD, a picture-stone tradition with a strong local character on Gotland is transformed into a runestone tradition similar to that of the Mälar area on the Swedish mainland. Gotland places its own distinguishing mark on the runestone tradition by imitating the mushroom or door shape of the slab just as on earlier picture stones, but the runic ornament is similar to that of runestones of the Mälar area.

In her dissertation on the language and chronology of the Gotlandic runic inscriptions (Snædal 2002), Thorgunn Snædal reaches the conclusion that the background to Gotlandic runestones of central Scandinavian runestone style lies in Swedish influence on Gotland resulting from the treaty between Gotlanders (gutar) and Swedes (svear), supposed to have been agreed upon in ca. AD 1030 (Snædal 2002: 230). Snædal further suggests that the fading of the runestone tradition on the Swedish mainland induced the Upplandic rune carvers to look around for another area and find a new arena on Gotland, resulting in an increase in runic monuments on Gotland (Snædal 2004b: 62; cf. 2002: 230). To my mind, this is a rather bold suggestion, which awakens curiosity. This implies that some rune carvers who were earlier active in Uppland would have left traces on Gotland, which is very interesting in the perspective of mobility. Was there an actual influx of rune carvers? Would it be possible to trace them back to the mainland?