Gothic runic inscriptions
Very few Elder Futhark inscriptions in the Gothic language have been found in the territory historically settled by the Goths (Wielbark culture, Chernyakhov culture). Due to the early Christianization of the Goths, the Gothic alphabet replaced runes by the mid-4th century.
There are about a dozen candidate inscriptions, and only three of them are widely accepted to be of Gothic origin: the gold ring of Pietroassa, bearing a votive inscription, part of a larger treasure found in the Romanian Carpathians, and two spearheads inscribed with what is probably the weapon's name, one found in the Ukrainian Carpathians, and the other in eastern Germany, near the Oder.
Ring of Pietroassa[]
A gold ring (necklace) found in 1837 in Pietroassa (recte Pietroasele, south-east Romania, Buzău County), dated to the ca. AD 400, bearing an Elder Futhark inscription of 15 runes. The ring was stolen in 1875, and clipped in two with pliers by a Bucharest goldsmith. It was recovered, but the 7th rune is now destroyed:
- ᚷᚢᛏᚨᚾᛁ [?] ᚹᛁ ᚺᚨᛁᛚᚨᚷ (gutani [?] wi hailag).
In pre-1875 drawings and descriptions it was read as othala,[1] gutaniowi hailag (ᚷᚢᛏᚨᚾᛁᛟᚹᛁ ᚺᚨᛁᛚᚨᚷ), interpreted as either gutanio wi hailag "sacred to the gothic women", or gutan-iowi hailag "sacred to the Jove of the Goths" (Loewe 1909; interpreted as Thunraz), or gutani o[thala] hailag "sacred inheritance of the Goths" (gutani is the genitive plural, for Ulfilan