The Undley bracteate, a 5th century bracteate found in Undley Common, near Lakenheath, Suffolk (). The 5th century is the period from 401 to 500 in accordance with the Julian calendar in Anno Domini / Common Era. A bracteate (from the Latin bractea, a thin piece of metal is a flat thin single-sided Gold coin produced in Northern Europe predominantly Lakenheath is a village in Suffolk, England It has around 8200 residents and is situated in the Forest Heath district of Suffolk close to the county boundaries Suffolk (ˈsʌfək is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It bears the earliest known inscription that can be argued to be in Anglo-Frisian Futhorc (as opposed to Common Germanic Elder Futhark). Futhorc, a Runic alphabet used by the Anglo-Saxons, was descended from the Elder Futhark of 24 runes and contained between 26 and 33 characters The Elder Futhark (or Elder Fuþark, Older Futhark, Old Futhark) is the oldest form of the Runic alphabet, used by Germanic tribes
The image on the bracteate is an adaptation of an Urbs Roma coin type issued by Constantine the Great, conflating the helmeted head of the emperor and the image of Romulus and Remus suckled by the wolf on one face. Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus (27 February ca. 272 &ndash 22 May 337 commonly known as Constantine I, Constantine the Great, or Saint Constantine Romulus (c 771 BC– c 717 BC and Remus (c 771 BC–c 753 BC are the traditional founders of Rome, appearing in Roman mythology With a diameter of 2. 3 cm, it weighs 2. 24 grams. It may have originated in northern Germany or southern Scandinavia, and brought to England with an early Anglo-Saxon settler. For their language see Anglo-Saxon language. Anglo-Saxon is the term usually used to describe the invading Tribes in the south
The inscription reads:
- g͡æg͡og͡æ – mægæ medu,
The o being the earliest known instance of an os rune 
ᚩ contrasting with æsc 
ᚫ. Æ ( minuscule: æ) is a Grapheme formed from the letters A and E.
The mægæ medu is interpreted "mead for a kinsman", maybe in the sense "reward for a relative" referring to the bracteate itself. The gægogæ appears to be some magical invocation or battle cry, comparable to the g͡ag͡ag͡a on the Kragehul I lance-shaft: in both cases the ga (gæ, go) are written as bindrunes, that is the X shape of the gyfu has side-twigs attached for the vowel. Kragehul I ( DR 196 U) is a Migration period lance -shaft found in Fyn, Denmark. A bind rune is a ligature of two or more runes. They are extremely rare in Viking Age inscription Gyfu is the name for the g - Rune in the Anglo-Saxon Rune poem, meaning "gift" or "generosity" Since the entire difference of æ vs. o consists in slightly bent twigs, in a context of a magical chant or cry rather than actual words, the inscription presents only tenuous evidence of incipient Anglo-Frisian brightening. The Phonology of Old English is necessarily somewhat speculative since it is preserved purely as a Written language.
References
- J. Hines and B. Odemstedt, The Undley bracteate and its runic inscription, Studien zur Sachsenforschungen, 6 (1987), pp. 73-94.
- J. Hines, The Scandinavian character of Anglian England in the pre-Viking period, BAR British Series 124 (Oxford, 1984), pp. 204-9.
- S. E. West, Gold bracteate from Undley, Suffolk, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 17 (1983), p. 459.
- M. Axboe, The Scandinavian gold bracteates, Acta Archaeologica, 52 (1982), p. 75.
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