Ebook: Work and Worship: Laser Scanner Analysis of Viking Age Rune Stones

This is a study of collaboration on Viking Age and Early Middle Age rune stones. For this study, a method for surface structure analysis by laser scanning has been employed. The aim with this method is to distinguish between individual rune carvers in rock by their cutting techniques, as witnessed by the cut marks. The probability of the existence of individual cutting techniques is supported by neurophysiological and psychological kinetic research on individual motor
performance.

Conclusions of stylistic and runological studies of regional or chronological issues concerning rune stones often include a reservation for the possibility of individual variation. Attributions and dating are closely related to individual, chronological, regional and functional variation. Technical analysis of the cutting techniques have come to be regarded as a hypothetical but unachievable means to distinguish between individuals. One of the complicating factors is individual variability, due to aging, increasing skill, sickness, fatigue or change of tools. The method has been developed and tested by analyses of a recently cut reference material and on the Sparlösa Monument from 9th c. AD, a rune stone where it is known that a part of the inscription has been added at a later occasion. The usefulness of the method is discussed in terms of hit accuracy in classification, individual variability and how sources of errors such as weathering and treading may effect the variables that are used to characterise the cut marks.