Fig. 284.—Silver fibula, with earlier runes,[[123]] richly gilt, the zigzag and runes filled with blue niello; ⅔ real size; earlier iron age.—Etelhem, Gotland.
Besides the runes found inscribed upon jewels, weapons, coins,[[124]] &c., there are others engraved on rocks and memorial stones, which are of very great antiquity, some of which seem to be earlier than the runes of the bog finds.
There are two alphabets; the earlier one numbered twenty-four, the later sixteen letters.
Earlier Runes from the Vadstena bracteate.
Later Runes.
The Vadstena alphabet is divided into three sections, each containing eight letters or characters. The earlier runes were written from the right to the left; the later runic inscriptions are read from the left to the right. The later runes differ considerably from the earlier ones, from the gradual changes that took place, some falling out of use, till only sixteen existed in later times. Their signification also changed.
Were it not for the evidence of the finds having runic inscriptions of the fuller runic alphabet, it would have seemed more probable that the less developed one was the earlier; but in the face of the most indisputable proofs of the antiquity of the fuller alphabet, such assertions cannot be made. The only conclusion to which this leads us therefore is, that the runic alphabet must in the course of time have become simplified. There are runic inscriptions which contain both earlier and later runes, but the former at last gradually disappeared.
It seems that the custom of having alphabets on objects such as the Vadstena bracteate existed in Greece and Etruria.[[125]] The earliest graves in the Roman colonies in which there is writing are very few; what writing there is is never in the language of the people, but always in Latin; and nearly all, if not all such graves, are those of Christian people.