Portal:Ancient Germanic culture/Runic inscription/5

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The Franks Casket (or the Auzon Runic Casket) is a whalebone chest, carved with narrative scenes in flat two-dimensional low-relief and inscribed with runes, dateable from its pagan elements to the mid-seventh century (that is, during the height of the Heptarchy and the period of Christianization of England). The casket is densely decorated with images and Anglo-Saxon runic inscriptions whose interpretation have occupied linguists. It is now kept in the British Museum. Generally reckoned to be of Northumbrian origin, it is of unique importance for the insight it gives into secular culture in early Anglo-Saxon England.

The imagery is multiform in its inspirations and includes a single Christian image, the Adoration of the Magi, depicted along with images derived from Roman history (Emperor Titus) and Roman mythology (Romulus and Remus), as well as depictions of legends indigenous to the Germanic peoples: the Germanic legend of Weyland the Smith, an episode from the Sigurd legend, and a legend that is apparently an otherwise lost episode from the life of Weyland's brother Egil.