AMULET

Professor Hines (University of Cardiff) has kindly commented on this artefact and its inscription 'It's a remarkably nicely formed inscription on the one side, with a "triple bind-rune" (three letters in a sort of joined-up writing!) that is at least extremely rare, possibly unique.

Barry's reading of the clearer side is quite right: "a" then "dmo" joined together. We could rule out several possibilities for the truncated rune on the far left-hand side but there would be a good number remaining. I wouldn't immediately suggest an interpretation, though it would be quite realistic for that to be part of an Old English personal name.

I think the second side is probably "red" rather than rld ... this is on the basis of a faint second by-stave on the middle rune, that could create another bind-rune of e+d. But it certainly could be the letter "l". I'd need to see it under a microscope myself to try to sort that out, but it wouldn't necessarily be completely conclusive even so.'

Professor Knirk (University of Oslo) has kindly commented on this artefact and its inscription; 'Concerning the inscription on the side with strong runes: It does read ?admo, and there probably was something before the remains of the first rune, which is in the break at the left edge. The remains of the first rune,
as Bary Ager wrote, could be e, i, m, h or d. But I am fairly sure the remains should be read as an uncertain m. Thus my reading is (--m)admo(--), where parentheses indicate uncertainty. As a matter of fact, I am fairly sure that there was an m-rune before the first certain rune, so the uncertainty is actually minimal. I see, in the stave at the edge, knife cuts near the top of the stave and 1/3 or the way down; this corresponds exactly to the cuts where the crossing lines of the clear m-rune (on the left side) meet the last stave in the inscription.

Whether anything has followed the last rune, is a question. There seems to be a slightly larger empty space after the last rune; although this might indicate that the inscription ended here, I feel the material is not sufficient to make that statement. I would actually assume that the inscription
continued. Thus I have (--) at both ends of the inscription.

Otherwise I would assume that the language was Latin, not "presumably Anglo-Saxon". In Scandinavia, in Christian times (after 1000/1050), inscriptions on metal plates are almost always religious texts in Latin or garbled Latin. My reaction to "admo" was the same; I can think of parts of
many Latin words that this could represent. The Scandinavian parallels would also lead me to assume that this was a Christian amulet.

Concerning the other side: rld seems to be the reading, although the branch on the l appears to have a nick at the end. Only a new inspection of the object itself would reveal if this is actually to be read as an e-rune (the runic form resembles M; the e would then form a bind-rune with the
following d) or as an a (thus with a lower branch which is difficult or impossible to see on the picture; like the a-rune on the other side). My reading then would be r(l)d, or probably (--)r(l)d(--), with an uncertain l-rune in the middle and possibilities that the inscription continued at both
ends. A vowel instead of an l-rune would give us good linguistic possibilities, but the consonant cluster (rld), should that be confirmed, could represent the end of one word and the beginning of another. Or the whole thing could be "nonsense" (something we cannot grasp the meaning of; the runes are cut very lightly, perhaps only doodling).

My contribution would thus be:
1. Uncertain m as the rune at the beginning of the strongly cut inscription.
2. Maybe more likely Latin language than Anglo-Saxon in those runes.
3. The object: perhaps a Christian amulet.
4. Perhaps uncertain l-rune on the other side (should be checked again; I could not make up my mind simply from the picture I received).