Runestone styles
overview of runestone design
The term "runestone style" in the singular may refer to the Urnes style.
The style or design of runestones varied during the Viking Age. The early runestones were simple in design, but towards the end of the runestone era they became increasingly complex and made by travelling runemasters such as Öpir and Visäte.
A categorization of the styles was developed by Anne-Sophie Gräslund in the 1990s. Her systematization is considered to have been a break-through and is today a standard. The styles are RAK, Fp, Pr1, Pr2, Pr3, Pr4 and Pr5, and they cover the period 980-1130, which was the period during which most runestones were made.
The styles Pr1 and Pr2 correspond to the Ringerike style, whereas Pr3, Pr4 and Pr5 belong to what is more widely known as the Urnes style.
Below follows a brief presentation of the various styles by showing sample runestones according to Rundata's annotation.
RAK
RAK is the oldest style and covers the period 980-1015 AD, but the Rundata project also includes the older runestones in this group, as well as younger ones. This style has no dragon heads and the ends of the runic bands are straight.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4992044. The first chronological checks are 1130 and 1015.
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This entry incorporates text from “Runestone styles” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.