A rune-like carving on a terra sigillata bowl from the early medieval cemetery of Deiningen, Bavaria

Abstract

Excavations in 2020 of the inhumation grave of an adult female, from within a known early medieval cemetery north of the village of Deiningen in the Donau-Ries district, western Bavaria (Swabia), uncovered the inscribed bowl presented in Figure 1. This bowl can be classified as African red slip ware (Hayes 1972), a specific form of terra sigillata that was produced from the 1st to the 7th century AD in what is modern day Tunisia. It can be further categorised as Hayes 99B, a pottery type with an estimated production start of around 530 AD (Cau et al. 2011). The burial itself dates to the second half of the 6th century based on typochronological evidence.