the Kent II, III and IV coin inscriptions (the personal names pada and æpa/epa), dated to ca. AD 700. On St. Cuthbert's coffin (AD 698), a p rune takes the place of Greek Ρ. The Westeremden yew-stick (ca. AD 750) has op hæmu "at home" and up duna "on the hill". Looijenga (1997) speculates that the p rune arose as a variant of the b rune, parallel to the secondary nature of Ogham peith. The uncertainty surrounding the rune is a consequence of the rarity of the *p phoneme in Proto-Germanic, itself due to the rarity of its parent-phoneme *b in Proto-Indo-European. The rune is discontinued in Younger Futhark, which expresses /p/ with the b rune, for example on the Viking Age Skarpåker Stone, iarþ sal rifna uk ubhimin for Old Norse Jörð skal rifna ok upphiminn. "Earth shall be rent, and the heavens above." References A. Bammesberger, G. Waxenberger (eds.), Das fuþark und seine einzelsprachlichen Weiterentwicklungen, Walter de Gruyter (2006), , 85-98 (Birkhan), 418f. (Schulte). W. Krause. Die Sprache der urnordischen Runeninschriften, C. Winter (1971), p. 37 See also Runic alphabet Rune poem Gothic alphabet Ogham Runes