> Heill Diego,
>
> Interesting theory. However, I heard the Greek theory was dismissed due
> to the date of the first find?

The Greek theory was dismissed by Moltke [1985], whom has been heavily
criticised by Antonsen's excellent work [2002]. I'm currently working to
add something to Antonsen's comments on it: after demonstrating that
Moltke's reasons to disregard both the Greek theory and the Etruscan are
wrong, he only focuses on the Greek alphabet, forgetting about the
Etruscan. His suggestions need to be picked up and worked on. The date of
the Meldorf fibula has been agreed on to be 1-25 AD [Antonsen 2002], so
the possible period for the birth of the runes can be traced back to about
200 years earlier, but with no certainty: anyway I'm certain it's before
any Roman presence on the Rhine. The only alphabets known in central
Europe at the time were the Greek and the North-Etruscan (unfortunately
poorly documented), both in use among Gauls and Raeti.

> This theory your working on could prove strong if you consider the trade
> routes?

The route I am convinced about is the one who brought amber to Gauls and
Greek in the times before imperial Rome, that is, from the Baltic to
Marseille through the Rhine and the Rhône valleys.

> I heard something similar to what you mentioned and will have to
> review the information more to come to a better answer. I believe it was
> from this source:
>
> THE MANX NOTE BOOK: Containing Matters Past and Present connected with the
> Isle of Man. Edited by A.W.Moore.
>
> If you have anymore information on this please share it;-).

I don't have a lot of informations about it, because now I'm working
mainly with Scandinavian runes. Anyway Page has produced a lot of stuff on
runes in the British Isles, especially in the Isle of Man. You should
check his works, but I don't know much about it.

> However, there is alot of inscriptions I have pondered on. Say for
> instance on 'erilar'. Mees consider this to be a social status just lower
> than a king. Antonsen has agreed with this, however says the names that
> follow on some of the inscriptions is feminine? WOW, a new light showing
> that the earl/jarl was maybe a woman? Shows interesting thoughts to how
> limited we are in understanding the truth? Antonsen agrues that
> Proto-Norse weak names ending in -o as feminine names. He discovered this
> with the names: Wagnijo [way-farer], Na<thorn>ijo [relative]. Theories
> been set as possible a woman smith, however the weight of the agrument is
> laying more on a woman chieftain/landowner?

Maybe you should have said the name of the inscription. But I am fairly
convinced that early Germanic civilisation has been influenced by the
Celtic much more than many scholars admit. However, the two peoples did
share a lot of common features; and surely the masculine image of itself
that Germanic society shows during the Migration Era, unfortunately the
period we know most about, is not to be regarded as mirroring the
important status women can have had originally, which certainly was
similar to that of the Celtic world.
The linguistic evidence of the example you quote is perfectly correct,
being gmc long /o/ originated by long Indo-european /a/, which is the
feminine ending in many ie languages even today.
Kveðja,
Diego