Ebook: Reading Runes: Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on Runes and Runic Inscriptions, Nyköping, Sweden, 2-6 September 2014

The 8th International Symposium on Runes and Runic Inscriptions with the theme 'Reading Runes – Discovery, Decipherment, Documentation' took place 1–6 September, 2014, at Sunlight Hotel, Conference & Spa, in Nyköping.

The scope of the symposium was broad, catering to a wide range of interests. Some may have found certain presentations irrelevant or even provocative as regards their understanding of the discipline, but we as organizers made no apologies for accepting such papers. Runic studies is simply too small a specialty for total agreement to be healthy, with only a few scholars attempting to cover the whole spectrum naturally developing in larger fields of study. As long as the scholarly quality is satisfactory, all contributions to runic studies are welcome.

Sixteen papers are published in the symposium report, with the symposium themes reversed as the only plenary lecture included is the one on documentation. The articles in this volume primarily reflect what was submitted for publication after the symposium: most of the editing was done in 2015 and 2016, and the contributions have generally not been updated.