The shaft stands 1.80 metres high, 2.45 wide at the base. It runs 240 metres down. Excavations have taken it 121 years to uncover this runic inscription's original location, but the stone itself is younger - carved in 1000 AD, the same year as the Battle of Svolder. 9000 kilometres away and a millennium later, Jobjorgen and Sven would be unrecognizable faces on an antiques show. But here they are, brought to life in the script of their own memorial stone.
The inscription U 121 was moved from a gravefield near Solna station, and now sits near the entrance of Stora Frösundas. The moving of the stone took place during the construction of Hagalundstunneln and Solna station. Translated from Old Norse, the runic inscription reads, 'Jobjorgen and Sven (or: Sten) the ones who erected the stone in memory of Torfred, Ingetoras man. Today the inscription, technically not part of Stora Frösundas, is a landmark in the park, joined by the park itself, which was part of a movement to protect open spaces in 1912.
It is not a secret - but in a city that changed so much since the inception of this stone, it is a hidden gem nonetheless, a tiny portal to an era when this place was something else entirely.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nik Frost
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