The U 53 runestone: a Viking rune built into a corner of Gamla Stan, in Stockholm

At the junction of Prästgatan and Kåkbrinken, in the heart of Gamla Stan, the corner of a building hides a block of granite barely more than half a metre tall. This is the runestone catalogued as U 53 (Uppland Runic Inscription 53), a Viking stele carved around a thousand years ago. There is no plaque, no sign: passers-by take it for an ordinary cornerstone and head straight on toward the shop windows of the street. And yet it is older than the city that surrounds it.

The inscription

The inscription, in the runic alphabet, is partly lost. What remains reads: "Torsten and Frögunn had this stone raised in memory of their son". The son's name has been lost along with a piece of the text. It is a private funerary monument, the voice of an eleventh-century couple who wished to remember a loved one. The style of the carving, classified as Pr4 (the Urnes style, made of intertwined stylised animals), is typical of the stones carved in Uppland, the region north of Stockholm, in the second half of the eleventh century. A curious detail emerged from a laser scan in 2000: the carvings appear to be the work of two different hands, an experienced master with a deep, regular stroke and a more hesitant apprentice, while the Christian cross was probably added later.

Older than the city

The stone is also older than Stockholm in the literal sense. The city, founded in the thirteenth century, has left no trace of a runic culture of its own: stelae like this are too heavy to have been transported from afar, and it is thought they came from Iron Age settlements in the surroundings, on Norrmalm or Södermalm. How it ended up walled into a corner is unknown: at some point a builder acquired it and decided it would make a fine corner decoration. The first to transcribe its text was the scholar Johannes Bureus, in the seventeenth century.

The cannon

The detail that catches the eye, once you spot it, is the cannon. An old piece of iron artillery is driven vertically into the corner, in front of the stone. It is not a war memorial: in the seventeenth century decommissioned cannons were reused as bollards, planted at the corners of narrow streets to stop cart wheels from scraping against the walls. Here that improvised bollard ended up protecting, by pure chance, a relic five centuries older than itself.

What you actually see: the granite block is at waist height, on the side of the building (address Prästgatan 17 / Kåkbrinken 1), just behind the cannon's muzzle. The runes are still legible if you come close and look calmly; many mistake them for cracks. U 53 is one of three runestones linked to the old town: U 274 is preserved in the Museum of Medieval Stockholm, while U 54, once set in a staircase of the Riddarholmen church, has been lost.

How to get there

How to get there: you are right in the historic centre. The Gamla Stan metro station (red and green lines) is a few minutes' walk away; from there you enter the web of alleys and reach the junction of Prästgatan and Kåkbrinken. It is outdoors, free and visible at any hour. It is best to seek it out early in the morning or in the shoulder seasons, when Gamla Stan is less crowded and you can pause at the corner without blocking the way. Coordinates: 59.3253, 18.0707.