This is yet another update with rune stones that already appear on the site, and now I have collected all of the stones that tell about bridge-making. Infrastructure was almost non-existing in those days. Lakes and rivers were used to transport goods and people from one place to another. They used boats in the summer and horse + sledge on the frozen lakes in the winter. In Britain the Roman occupants built roads. Scandinavians had to build them themselves.

It was possible to travel by land also, but these trails were not maintained by any state - only by local cheiftains, like Jarlabanke in Täby for instance. People could get appreciation and perhaps also show their local power by building a bridge across a stream in memory of a dead relative, and place a rune stone next to the bridge, so that the passers by could send a thankful thought to the builder and at the same time remember their dead friend.

Nowadays you sometimes see benches in parks with a plaque, that tell the person who rest his/her feet there, who financed the bench + "In loving memory of...."

There are about 140 rune stones that mention bridge-building, and you'll find almost 100 of them in the left frame. If you have seen any of the other parts of this site based on topic (via updates), you know that there are two rows of previous/next, and the upper one will bring you to the next rune stone in numeric order, while the bottom one will bring you to one of a similar topic - in this case another stone that once stood next to an early medieval bridge.

Explore and enjoy.