Visti

When writing the previous entry about the Husby runestone, I came across the Scandinavian runic-text Database[a] and I had an idea. The database requires a Windows client program to access and search, and I was sure I could do something with Google AppEngine[b] that would bring the database to the web - searchable and mappable.

I spent a Sunday of "mead fueled berzerker coding", and the result after about ten hours is this:

[c]
Visti[d]

You can search for...

• ...runestone ids: U74[e], U75[f], ...

• ...rune carvers: Visäte[g], Torkel[h], ...

• ...free text: man[i], Christ[j], ...

• ...and much more.

The site is named after the carver of the Husby runestone, Visäte, who signed that stone "uisti risti[k]" or "Visäte carved". At the moment, only about 6000 objects of the ~11000 in the database are indexed - partly because that's how the AppEngine free tier quota works, mostly because I'm still working on the data conversion.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.